WWE veteran Natalya recently looked back on her working relationship with former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon during an interview with Ring The Belle, crediting him for many of the most significant moments in her career and for championing opportunities for women in the company.
“WWE is my home. It’s where I’ve built so many incredible amazing moments, and I think it is about trust though,” Natalya said. “You know, they know that I’m going to deliver. And I just feel like the women have come such a long way. Vince McMahon gave me so many opportunities.”
One of those opportunities, she revealed, was a groundbreaking moment in WWE history. Natalya recalled how she personally approached McMahon about competing in Saudi Arabia when the company first began holding events there. “I said to Vince McMahon, when WWE first started doing stuff in Saudi Arabia, I said to Vince, ‘Vince, I want to be the first woman to wrestle in Saudi Arabia.’ Vince made it happen,” she shared.
Natalya emphasized that McMahon was deeply committed to expanding women’s visibility on the global stage and pushed hard behind the scenes to make that vision a reality. “I think Vince really wanted women to wrestle there, too. And he really wanted us to have more visibility there, okay? To be able to, like, you know, do what we love. And so I will always be so grateful to Vince for that moment because he fought for the women to have more visibility in Saudi Arabia. He had to fight. He really had to fight.”
Natalya would go on to make history by competing in the first-ever women’s match in Saudi Arabia in 2019, facing Lacey Evans at Crown Jewel — a landmark moment in WWE’s ongoing women’s evolution.
