Tyson Kidd Talks Working For WWE As A Producer

Natalya has been one of the wrestlers at the forefront of WWE's Women's Revolution. She and Lacey Evans wrestled in the first ever WWE women's match in Saudia Arabia. On the recent episode of After The Bell, Corey Graves asked what Natalya has planned for the future, and Natalya talked about her fight to get to where she is now especially during her husband's, Tyson Kidd's, injury that ended his career.

"Let me cut to the chase. I was ready for the Women's Revolution before the Women's Revolution was ready for me, but I had to wait. I had to wait because it wasn't the right time, and finally the Women's Revolution came. It's funny because I remember it really clearly. When TJ broke his neck, that was right when they were debuting Charlotte, Becky and Sasha, and I was torn between do I stay home with TJ and take care of him after he had this insane, almost life-threatening, career-ending, tragic injury, or do I go back to work and jump in to everything I had been fighting for for my whole entire career," Natalya said. "So now that we're here where we are at right now, we have three divisions: NXT, RAW, Smackdown. I'm not about to walk away from everything that I fought for, and I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life, and there's so much more that I have left to do. So that's why I'm still here."

The injury forced Kidd to end his in-ring wrestling career, but he has served as a backstage producer for WWE. Graves asked Kidd about the transition to being a producer.

"So the transition was fairly smooth to be honest. It was smooth in terms of I like helping people. I liked helping talent with their matches prior to my injury. Obviously, now as a producer it becomes more a larger responsibility than just me as a talent giving advice. What I didn't know was I didn't know how fulfilling it could actually be," Kidd said. "I was told by the boss that now you'll be like me, vicariously living through the talent, and I thought those were just words. And I've now come to realize that it's very real. The fulfillment and the feeling is very real. When we lay something out and the talent goes out there, I'm part of the creative process of helping putting things together maybe putting things in different places. When they go out there and execute it even better than I have it imagined in my head, it is just a great feeling."

Kidd talked about the emotions of being a producer. He talked about the fulfillment of seeing something that he helped put together and seeing talent put that into action and making it better. He said that he was in tears watching Natalya's SummerSlam match against Becky Lynch with Seth Rollins.

"I don't know if it's since my injury or it's my age or a combination of the two but it's very weird," Kidd said. "I'm a lot more emotional now. So if I see what I will call like a beautiful match, if I watch it at home by myself, I'll have a hard time not in tears watching these matches. I wasn't the producer for Becky vs. Nattie at SummerSlam, but I did have a hand in helping with some ideas, and as I was watching it in gorilla, that footage is somewhere, I'm watching it in gorilla with Seth. The WWE cameras are there. It's funny me and Seth sitting there in gorilla watching this match, and I'm fighting these tears because when I'm watching it at home, Nattie is sitting there sleeping in like two minutes, but I'm sitting there crying by myself. I don't know if that's injury or my age. Like I said, the biggest word is gonna be fulfillment.

"It feels really good to be a part of this. The two years that I was away while I was injured and before I came back in this role, I felt really isolated and very on an island all to myself. It feels really good to be back amongst my peers and the talent, the other producers who helped me a lot when I was a talent. So it's cool to give back. Wrestling and WWE has given me a good opportunity as a talent. I just want to give back and give everything that I can now that I physically can't do this anymore."

Natalya revealed that there are a lot of wrestlers that want Kidd to work with them as their producer. Kidd has talked about before about working with the RAW women's division. While not downplaying Kidd's injury, Natalya called it destiny that Kidd is in the position that he is in.

"Well, there's a little line-up for TJ too. This feels great to be able to say this, but the other week I was talking to John Laurinaitis, who's in charge of the producers, and I was [talking to] to him. Like sometimes with TJ it's tricky because we're in a relationship together, but I really like it when he helps me with my matches. Fit Finlay had like a shoulder surgery, so he' been out, and Fit's usually been with the girls. Since Fit's been gone, everybody's like the girls have to get their ducks in a row, and it's funny John's been like so many people were coming up to me and asking about TJ being their producer. So many talent come up to me like I want TJ. It's been from Seth to Randy to Becky to myself to Naomi and Asuka Everybody wants TJ as their producer," Natalya said. "It makes me feel so good when talent come to me and say, 'we got TJ' because I think that part of TJ's destiny, nobody ever wants to get hurt, but it's crazy, I just feel like it's part of his destiny to get to where he is now. It was something that was meant to be for him."

Kidd talked about the different feeling of talent wanting to work with as a producer compared to wrestlers wanting to work with him in the ring. He shared a story of working with Carmella during her Smackdown women's title reign and helping talent get their ideas across during meetings with other producers.

"It's funny. When talent are requesting me, it's a different feeling. It feels better than when I was a talent and talent wanted to work with me in the ring, and I don't know why that is because being in the ring was my greatest love as I'm sure you know that same exact feeling. Now maybe it's a part of my mind that has to shut that off, and I have some kind of closure with that. I don't know, but once I start working with a talent for a certain amount of time, we just develop this relationship especially if I have them repeatedly, and I'm not saying it because you're here. That summer when Carmella was champion, I keep having these Carmella matches, so we keep working together. Now she's trumping my ideas with better ideas because that's what we started building. We started building together, and then at the Rumble just the way things worked out, there's no slight to anybody, but at one point she wasn't going to do too much and things kind of changed. I suggested hey hold on, if we're gonna change things, let's have Carmella get a little spot, and she came up and said, 'hey, thank you so much.' I just build a rapport," Kidd said. "I think in these meeting and when it comes to putting the match together, I'm almost like the talent's shield. If they have certain ideas in the meeting, obviously talents aren't in the meetings, if they have a specific idea, whether I like the idea or not, it's my duty, I feel like, to present it as best I can."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit After The Bell with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.