Natalya talks release of new autobiography, Bloodsport, Vince, TJ Wilson, and more

WWE Superstar Natalya sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Tampa, Florida to discuss her new autobiography “Last Hart Beating” and why now was the right time to release the book, the most difficult chapters to write about, why her path to WWE was not as easy as some may have expected, her new character outside of WWE that has competed at Bloodsport, GCW and the NWA, slapping Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 26, how she found out that Owen Hart had passed away at Over The Edge 1999, when her husband Tyson Kidd (TJ Wilson) broke his neck in the ring, being a Guinness World Record holder and more!

On her new character outside of WWE:

“It’s been the most liberating feeling working on that character, and it all just happened so organically, it really stemmed from the book. After I finished writing the book, I was like, Oh my God, I know what I need to do now. I had signed this new contract with WWE, and I think with Triple H, I think he really wanted to find the right thing. I think he didn’t want to just throw me in stuff that didn’t matter. I think he really wanted to find the right thing. The thing with him is that I believe he’s a forward thinker. So he was like, we just can’t rush into it. We just have to find the right thing for you. And because I had expressed when I was signing my new deal, I was like, I got to grow. This isn’t just about money for me. This is about growing. I have to grow. I have to evolve. I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life. I love wrestling and I need something to dive into. But when I was doing my contract, I didn’t quite know what that was. It wasn’t until I finished the book, so I was in a little bit of a creative rut. It was early this year. It was like February of this year, and I was like, man, WrestleMania is right around the corner, and I don’t know where I fit in. I just know I’m not going to be on the card. I’m not in a storyline. No one’s talking about where I fit in, because you can read the room, you can measure the pulse. I would talk to the writers, I would try to pick people’s brains and go where do I fit in? And this, by the way, is after being in a company for over 18 years. I’m still climbing and scratching and clawing for my spot, which is half the battle and half the beauty. So Josh Barnett and I got to talking, and he was like, ‘Let’s do Bloodsport.’ I was like, I’d love to do Bloodsport. We got to talking about me doing Bloodsport, and I said, I’m going to ask for permission. I walked up to Triple H. He was at the ringside. He was doing a rehearsal for Monday Night Raw. Walked up to him. I told him, ‘Listen, I’ve spoken to Josh Barnett. I would love to do Bloodsport.’ And Hunter was like, Sure. I was so afraid that he was going to say no, because I was like, I really, really, really want to do something Mania weekend. I need to do something, my creative juices are just feeling so stifled. He said yes right away. And he’s like, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, no problem at all. And I know that the company really respects Josh, and they’ve let talent work and do stuff at Bloodsport before. He said yes, so supportively that I was like, I remember that day. I was so excited. I ran up to TJ, and I was like, Hunter loved it. He was like, Yeah, go for it. So I took that as a this is my mission to build something that I’ve never built before.”

On being ringside for Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 26:

“It was crazy because we only found out that we were going to be part of that the night before. So Vince wanted to do this. Vince and Bret were going to do the match, and then Vince had decided the night before that he wanted the whole family out there. Somebody was going into the Hall of Fame. I can’t remember what it was, but the family was there, and then Vince decided, listen, the whole family’s here, maybe we’ll just get them all in the ring, get them all out there with Bret. But then Vince wanted me to slap him. […] So Vince, before the match, he pulled me aside and he was like, ‘I really want you to have this moment.’ And I thought that was great. He really cared about me having that moment. So he was like, ‘But you have to promise me one thing, Natalie. You have to slap me as hard as you can.’”

Why does he call you Natalie?

“He always called me Natalie. And so he made me promise him that I’m going to hit him hard. He was like, it has to look real, because he didn’t want me being scared that he was the boss, where I maybe don’t touch him, imagine me at WrestleMania not actually hitting him and I totally miss his face, or whatever. He was like, ‘It needs to look good. It needs to look real.’ And after the match, Hunter was like,
Who taught you how to slap, Steph?”

On what was the most difficult chapter of the book to write:

“I think the most difficult topic to cover was TJ’s injury. I had sleepless nights writing about those chapters. Those were the chapters that they pulled at my heart because they were really [tough]. Even with the stuff that, you know, we think about the Hart family, you think about all the things, there’s been highs and lows. Owen’s death was very tragic. My dad in his struggles, growing up with a parent that my dad struggled his whole, entire adult life, and so I had so much instability that when I was a kid that I’ve never shared. I’ve never shared any of it until writing this book, that people were like, Oh, I had no idea that for two years my sisters and my mom and I lived at my grandfather’s house, and we shared a bed. We shared one bed, and we all four slept in that bed for two years, because my dad lost everything, and so my mom was trying to create some stability for us. We were never, ever homeless. We lived at the Hart House, but there was only one available room. So it really taught me about like I got to sink or swim. Those were hard chapters to write about, because I talk a lot about my dad’s addiction and the things that we went through, and it was just those. Those were hard, but they were nothing like writing about TJ’s chapters of his injury and what we went through.”

Did you know he was injured?

“I knew TJ couldn’t move. Because Cesaro was trying to talk to him, and he [TJ] couldn’t move, he literally just wouldn’t. I knew he wasn’t okay. I knew by the way his hands, everything just was like almost curled for a split second. I don’t want to get too dramatic, but it didn’t look like a normal landing. His body just looked different. Sometimes if you hit a spider, they kind of curl up a little bit, it looked like he landed in a way that his body didn’t look natural and at ease. Because when TJ first landed, he was paralyzed for like 10 seconds, and so Claudio tried to grab him, to pull him out of the ring, and TJ said, ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.’ And then after being paralyzed for 10 seconds, TJ was able to regroup. He got up, he launched himself out of the ring. And that’s the thing, is that when you saw the way that TJ was, and I write a lot about it, and I go into detail again, don’t want to give it all away, but when I saw how TJ was acting, he wasn’t acting like someone that broke his neck. When you think of somebody that is injured, they’re limping, they’re vulnerable, they’re crying. TJ was angry.”

On TJ walking to the back after that match:

“He was very angry, and it was because he was scared. So that’s the thing, is that people deal with trauma in different ways. So, for example, I broke my ankle many years ago, 2016 small, little injury. But I remember just being so scared. I wanted the whole match to just end right then and there. TJ, I think because of being paralyzed, it scared him in a way that it went from fear to rage. So once he was not paralyzed anymore, the fear turned into rage. So people really didn’t know that he had a broken neck, because he was walking around like normal. He’s walking around, and he was just very, very angry and scared, and all of it was just coming out all at once. But those were hard chapters to write about, because I just knew once we found out from the doctors that TJ had this type of injury, the one doctor was so blunt. He was like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re never, ever wrestling again. You have to find another profession.’ He was very, very cold and blunt, and I wrote about it in the book. I just looked at Cesaro, because Cesaro was with us at the hospital. Cesaro had a tear rolling down his face. Because everybody that knows TJ just knows that he loves this. And Cesaro just knew that that was like a death and losing something that you love so much, there was a grieving there too. I also will say, just adding this, and I wrote about this in the book. My heart broke for Samoa Joe, because nobody wants to ever go through anything like that. That was the last thing in the world that he wanted. He is somebody that in the industry, Joe, I believe, and I have a pretty good pulse on the industry, not just in WWE. Joe is very respected. He’s a great guy. The guys love Joe. He’s got a great reputation. He’s a great person. He loves the industry. He’s very honorable. So it was the last thing in the world that Joe wanted. So my heart also broke for Joe, because I just always felt so bad that he had to carry that too. People say mean things all the time to all of us on social media, but that’s the last thing in the world that Joe wanted. So I always had a little spot in my heart for him after that, because I was like, he didn’t want that, nobody wanted it. It was a sh*tty situation. Nobody across the board wanted that to happen. But it happened, and it was something that we had to go through. I will say, and I’ve said this before on your show, TJ’s injury led him to, I think, the best chapter of his career, because he has been able to reach so many more people in WWE and in wrestling and in the world by doing the stuff that he’s doing now. I think it was, unfortunately, part of his destiny, and sometimes you can’t f*ck with your destiny. You gotta let it happen, and then you gotta let it help you.”