Dominic DeAngelo of Studio 1 Sports sent along the following:
As a coach, Natalya Neidhart’s late grandfather Stu Hart was notorious for stretching out his students in his infamous Dungeon.
While she may not apply Stu’s exact methods, her coaching does remain akin to her Calgary cavalry.
Fans will get to see that tonight as “WWE LFG” returns to A&E, but this time with some new teachers.
Along with Kevin Owens, Nattie joins the fight faculty to help new group of upstart wrestlers get on the track of WWE Superstardom.
However, Nattie pridefully admits that she’s always learning too, most recently from her LFG colleagues.
“I like learning from Booker T. I like learning from Bubba Dudley. I like learning from Kevin Owens, the other people that were working with me on [LFG]. I like learning from Triple H. I like working, learning and working under Shawn Michaels…
“Certain things that Triple H likes, Shawn might not do that way. It doesn’t mean that one is right or wrong. And some things that Shawn likes and the way that he helps develop talent, Triple H might not like do exactly that way.”
Stu Hart’s Dungeon vs. Nattie’s Dungeon
Aside from the lack of air conditioning, what other similarities does Nattie’s Dungeon have in comparison to her grand daddy’s?
“The original Dungeon, my grandfather used to say, ‘If you could survive the Dungeon, you could survive anything.’
And so when people are working with us, we’ve had [stars] training for WrestleMania, Jacob Fatu, Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez, Roxanne Perez, Ilja Dragunov, Street Profits, Apollo Crews, B-Fab, just to name a few.
“Wrestling is not easy. It’s not meant to be easy and only the strong survive. And so it’s just really cool to see people pushing through, like Jacob Fatu. I have to kick Jacob out of the ring because he doesn’t want to get out … Like some of our practices are going for four hours in a non-air-conditioned building. I’m like, ‘Guys, we’re all going to get heatstroke here.’”
Nattie said that one coaching method Stu instilled in his Dungeon was allowing the trainees to take the lead, and that’s what Nattie does in her Dungeon, noting that is where her uncle Bret Hart learned leadership in the ring.
However, the daughter of The Anvil” Jim Neidhart remains cognizant of one constant variable in the squared circle.
“The wrestling business owes us nothing. It owes none of us anything.
“Everything I have in my life is because of professional wrestling. Everything, my house, my relationships, my whole world is because of professional wrestling. It’s given me so much. It doesn’t owe me anything. But when you get a moment, even a crumb, even a morsel of an opportunity, you need to be ready because that’s the moment that you can kick the door down and it can change everything for you.”
Tune into LFG tonight at 10 PM ET on A&E.
