Natalya: I Owe Everything To Wrestling

Natalya wants to have grit like Stu Hart did.

Stu Hart is widely considered to be one of the toughest wrestlers in the history of the business. Wrestlers from that era will often share stories of Hart and how he navigated his life with strength, resilience, and grit.

While promoting ‘The Last Hart Beating’, Natalya spoke with Fightful for a new interview and chatted about how she wanted to have the same type of grit that her grandfather did.

“This isn’t a diss to my dad at all, but I wanted to create my own stability in my life because growing up we didn’t have any stability. So everybody on the outside thought we were okay, we were wealthy, we were famous, like this famous family. But for us, I just knew that if I worked my ass off, I could always take care of myself. So that kind of grit, I feel like it’s my grandfather’s grit, that Stu Hart grit where my grandfather, my grandfather was a little boy that lived in the Saskatchewan wilderness, he slept between dogs to stay warm in the crazy Saskatchewan winters. He ended up taking up wrestling at the YMCA because he didn’t have anywhere to live. That wrestling at the YMCA saved my grandfather’s life.”

Natalya was honest about the mindset, saying that it was a trauma response that developed after some of her childhood experiences.

“So I always remembered that and so in my own life, I was like, ‘I’m going to work so hard that no one’s going to take everything I have, that I will always be in control.’ It was a trauma response to having the rug pulled out from under us as kids. But at the same time, like I got stronger because of it. I love wrestling and the truth is that wrestling has given me everything I have. I owe everything to wrestling. I have a beautiful family, a beautiful home, a beautiful car, beautiful cats. Everything I have is because of pro wrestling. So there’s always just gonna be this enormous amount of gratitude. But to me it was so important that I went through tough times. If I didn’t go through those tough times, I wouldn’t have been able to have this powerful story that could change people’s lives. So I’m grateful for it. But there’s a lot of humor in the book, too. I think people will laugh. People will laugh out loud reading it.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Natalya said that writing her book helped her develop an appreciation for her life journey. Check out her full comments by clicking here.

Fans can also check out Fightful’s full interview with Natalya in the video linked at the top of this article.