Natalya, a former Divas and SmackDown Women’s Champion, recently opened up about the significant hurdles she faced trying to get signed by WWE. She attributes the difficulty to the complications and baggage within her legendary wrestling family.
Speaking on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Natalya said that while outsiders assumed her lineage was an advantage, the reality was the opposite due to ongoing tensions with management. “Because on the outside you go, ‘Well, she’s part of the Hart family, that’s got to be a door open for her, that kind of gets her foot in the door. She’s got a bit of a name.’ But when I was trying to get into WWE, Bret still had a conflict with Vince”. She noted that although Bret Hart was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006, the conflict was still very intense.
“Bret got into the Hall of Fame in 2006. I was starting to wrestle in 2000. [In] 2001, I was starting to have my first series of matches, but I was green, green, green, green. But Bret and Vince still had lots of conflict, so that conflict wasn’t really worked out for a long time. It was still very intense”.
The complex relationship between the Hart family and WWE stemmed from multiple tragic and strained situations, which Natalya felt negatively impacted her career prospects. “So for me, I think it was hard because, yes, I have this name of being part of the Hart family, but there was tension, there was conflict that they have with Owen’s wife, Martha”. “After Owen passed away, so tragically, the company had conflict there. They had a conflict with Bret. And of course, my dad had worked in and out of WWE for many decades, but my dad had lost his job quite a bit. He was fired from WWE, I think five times”.
Natalya believes this history caused WWE to be wary of hiring her. “So there was just a lot of baggage with the Hart family. I think that there was times, nobody told me this, but I could just assume this, that there were times that they were like, stay away from the Harts a little bit, we got the stuff with Bret going on”. She acknowledged the messy dynamic: “It was complicated. But families can be complicated. So it was just challenging for me to get hired”.
She explained that she had to pursue her dream independently, without any family help. “I would never, ever, ever ask Bret to do anything. And also, Bret’s not going to call anyone up, because he’s not on speaking terms with the company back then”. She kept sending audition tapes to Dr. Tom Pritchard, noting that her father was in no position to help. “It wasn’t like my dad was making phone calls to Vince McMahon, and I was getting in, it was just so hard because the family, like I couldn’t. My dad was struggling with a lot of personal stuff at that time, and he wasn’t well”.
Despite the challenges, Natalya shared gratitude that her journey required such perseverance. “It was hard, and now that I’m this deep into my career, I’m so happy that it was hard, because I grew so much from it being hard,” she said. “I love that it was hard for me to get hired. I love that so much, because it makes for a great story”.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Insight With Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. You can watch the full interview on the Insight With Chris Van Vliet YouTube channel.
