In 2019, ‘The Anvil’ was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Days prior to WWE’s 2018 SummerSlam pay-per-view, Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart passed away. His daughter, Natalya, appeared at SummerSlam sporting his jacket as she accompanied Ronda Rousey to the ring for her Raw Women’s Title bout.
The following year, while Natalya was in the ring, a video package aired to formally announce that her father would be going into the WWE Hall of Fame as a part of The Hart Foundation with Bret Hart. Natalya spoke to Chris Van Vliet and shared that the option for her father to go into the Hall of Fame as a solo act was on the table.
She shared that Vince McMahon told her that Jim Neidhart could be inducted by himself. Natalya explained that she wanted him to go into the Hall of Fame with Bret because that was The Anvil’s favorite period of his career.
He (Bret Hart) made my dad, he helped my dad so much. When I look at it, Bret always says, you know, ‘Jim helped me come out of my shell and Jim helped me find my personality.’ But when my dad and Bret were going into the Hall of Fame, it’s funny because I was very, very, very adamant. At one point it was approached, you know… I was basically presented with the idea of my dad going in by himself. And I said, ‘I want my dad and Bret in there together as the Hart Foundation because that was my dad’s favorite time in his career. That’s when he had the most fun. That’s when he was the most alive. That’s when he just did his best work. And Bret just looked out for him so much. And they were just so close and such a well-oiled machine.’ And so as much as like, in that moment, Vince (McMahon) was like, ‘We can put your dad in by himself.’ I was like, ‘I want my dad and Bret together. I want them together because my dad would have wanted that…’ So that was really cool to be able to do that for my dad… I know he would have been so excited to be part of the Hall of Fame.
For 16 years, Natalya has been a part of WWE and she’s been wrestling for 21 years. She stated that she’s not close to being done in the ring.
I just feel so good. That’s the crazy thing is that, like people always say, ‘Oh, when are you gonna wrap it up? When is it gonna be done?’ It’s like, listen, this is Hotel California. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave…. I’m a wrestler through and through, like it’ll never ever, ever, ever, ever leave me ever. It’s a community. It’s a family. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of life and it doesn’t mean that I’ll be competing forever but, it’s like, you know, when I saw Rey Mysterio, I was watching him in a match. I was live at a show and I went into the crowd and put a hat on and watched him, you know, I was incognito and I watched Rey perform live, it was in Mexico and he was wrestling Roman Reigns. And I was just like, Rey is almost 50 and he is doing the best work of his career. He’s so inspiring, his gear, his look, his energy, his vibe, his ability to move around to make people feel something and granted he was in there with one of the greatest of all-time, Roman, but Rey is one of the greatest of all time. He just inspires me so much and.. I’m not close to being done when I look at like what Rey’s doing. I’m like, Rey inspires me to want to do so much more and to also help people, because you look at who Rey’s worked with and how much he’s helped people even with Santos (Escobar) right now, you know? I look up to (Rey) so much, what he’s done.
On the 10/16 Monday Night Raw, Natalya competed in singles competition against WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Piper Niven and was on the losing end of the match. To hear POST Wrestling’s review of the show, head over to this link.
