Natalya has pushed back against suggestions that her evolving “Nattie” character is an attempt to emulate former WWE star and UFC champion Ronda Rousey.
Speaking with The Toronto Sun, Natalya discussed the development of the character and expressed hope that she will eventually have an opportunity to explore it further on WWE programming.
Natalya stressed that the presentation isn’t intended to recreate an MMA-inspired persona or imitate Rousey’s previous WWE work. “For me, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to explain this more on WWE programming in the near future, but for me, it’s not like I’m trying to reenact an MMA character, for example. It’s not like some people are like, ‘Oh, she’s just trying to be like Ronda Rousey.’ It’s like, no, I love Ronda, and I think Ronda did really cool work in WWE, but I feel like my character is still evolving and growing.”
Instead, Natalya explained that the character is rooted in her own wrestling background and the training she received through the legendary Hart family Dungeon.
She drew a direct connection between those beginnings and the more combat-oriented environment she experienced while competing at Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport. “The character is really just a derivative of what I did when I first started from my grandfather’s Dungeon. And I said this to Josh Barnett when we were first talking about me doing Bloodsport, I was like, ‘The Dungeon was Bloodsport before Bloodsport was Bloodsport.’”
Rather than representing a reinvention based on another performer’s style, Natalya views “Nattie” as an evolution of the foundation on which she originally built her wrestling career.
