There’s a healthy amount of buzz around WWE these days, as the company is coming off the thrilling Clash at the Castle event in Cardiff and has kept the momentum going with teases of more surprises and welcome announcements, such as the recent revelation that Survivor Series is being rebranded as Survivor Series War Games and won’t be in the traditional Raw vs SmackDown format. ComicBook.com had the chance to talk with the best of all time Natalya ahead of tonight’s SmackDown, where we discussed not only War Games but also her thrilling feud with Ronda Rousey, Triple H prioritizing Women’s Wrestling, and how she feels about being so nice while she’s playing a heel on TV.
Currently, Natalya is a heel on SmackDown, however regardless of whether or not she’s a heel or a babyface, she’s continually forming and embracing her followers on social media and at stay events, and it is a section of why her followers have usually supported her.
“You recognize what’s humorous is, you are taking the phrases proper out of my mouth. I assume due to the fact of my family, due to the fact of my background, due to the fact I’ve simply been at it for so long, chipping away and simply working at this component known as seasoned wrestling, I sense the followers have simply continually had my back,” Natalya said. “So every time I’ve been a heel or on every occasion I’ve been a top guy, precise girl, horrific man or awful girl, something you desire to name it, anything position I’ve been in, in WWE, the fans, they’re nevertheless respecting me. They usually recognize me.”
“It’s difficult on occasion due to the fact we do have a lot of new women coming in, so I in reality favor my function to be described so that we do not swim upstream. And I from time to time experience like it is less complicated for me to be an appropriate guy, due to the fact then it is so a good deal less complicated when you are company new, to make human beings hate you than it is to make them fall in love with you,” Natalya said. “It takes time. It takes time and fairness for our target market to construct have faith and fall in love with a character. So I’m nonetheless standing and they’re nonetheless in the back of me, so I’m grateful for that.”
Natalya appears to be having an extraordinary time as a heel though, particularly at some stage in her feud with Ronda Rousey. In a count number of simply a few weeks, Natalya and Rousey constructed a compelling feud that covered stellar battles on social media and pleasing sequences on TV, along with Natalya’s impersonation of Rousey in the ring, whole with a toddler stroller. If it appeared like she used to be having fun, she honestly was.
“I was once having the time of my life, and I keep in mind announcing to one of our head writers, I despatched him a textual content and I was once like, listen, I desire to costume up as Ronda. I desire to costume up as Ronda and I favor getting underneath her skin. And I sincerely desire to desire this to sense like, simply what I’m feeling inside. I assume it’s going to piss her off if I’m dressed up as her, and so we made it manifest and I suppose it startled everyone,” Natalya said. “Because Vince McMahon at the time used to be nevertheless there and he was once laughing so challenging when he noticed me heading to the ring and I had the infant carriage and it used to be fun.”
“What I cherished about that software with Ronda is that Ronda and I do have a lot of history. We educated collectively earlier than she ever got here to WWE. We had a friendship and we hadn’t had an application collectively before. We hadn’t had a contention before, however, it was once a way for me to additionally remind human beings of the variety that I have as a performer. You prefer me to be good, I’ll be the top guy. You prefer me to be the horrific guy, I’ll be the awful guy. You choose me to get on the mic and reduce a promo, I can reduce a promo. I simply want to be capable to do it. I want a story that excites me and that story received the target market so invested,” Natalya said.
Natalya and Rousey constructed anticipation to their in shape in a quick amount of time, and their stellar use of social media was once key in making that manifest and getting human beings to invest.
“Even even though it was once solely 4 weeks, I used to be capable of radically changing myself into a heel, getting human beings excited about a storyline, and reinvigorating something between myself and Ronda. I did not have the loopy three, 4 months construct that Charlotte and Ronda had earlier than their WrestleMania match,” Natalya said. “We solely had 4 weeks, however with the energy of social media, with us going again and forth a little bit on Twitter. She stated some matters that hit a gentle spot with me. I started some matters that hit a smooth spot with her, however at the give-up of the day, I desired human beings to watch us on SmackDown, tune in and be like, wow, that was once great. As Vince would say, great. S-H-I-T and humans did, human beings preferred it. The stuff I did with Ronda was once some of the highest-rated stuff on the show, so I used to be simply completely happy that human beings acquired it properly and it made our match, that we ultimately had at Money In The Bank, it made it interesting due to the fact we had this surely exciting story.”
It’s additionally been an interesting time in WWE for the Women’s division overall, and Triple H and Stephanie McMahon’s new roles have given the Division a welcome momentum. “I suppose this is what we’re seeing now with the emergence of Triple H taking over as a way as innovative go, mainly for women. With Stephanie being the Co-CEO of WWE, it is like Triple H without a doubt cares about women. He cares about women’s wrestling. He cares about females having greater visibility, and so does Stephanie,” Natalya said.
“Now we’re seeing extra women. We noticed the girl’s foremost tournament Raw ultimate Monday. We’re seeing greater women’s fits on pay-per-views. You’re seeing extra women’s representation. You’re seeing simply women, women, women, all during the show, and I assume for a little whilst there, we commenced to get away from that. And I assume that was once a priority. It was once precedence of Triple H to get the female again the front and center,” Natalya said.
“That was once one of the matters I used to be most excited about when Triple H got her back. I used to be like, this is going to be really, genuinely desirable for the women, and I cannot communicate for all the talent, however, I simply comprehend that the ladies had been simply craving extra representation. And Triple H, he is been main the cost for that illustration in view that I headlined the very first NXT Takeover in 2014. So we’re grateful. We’re simply extraordinarily grateful and hope that we can simply maintain up that momentum,” Natalya said.
Speaking of Triple H, he currently made the large announcement that Survivor Series would be headlined by using War Games matches, which grew to be famous in NXT Takeovers. Now there will be War Games suits in the course of an essential roster event, and seeing that there have generally been men’s and women’s War Games fits all through previous events, Natalya honestly desires in on the Women’s in shape at Survivor Series.
