NXT is spoken highly of by Natalya.
Along with Shayna Baszler, Natalya has been regularly featured on NXT in their recent stretch of TVs. The brand became a key talking point for Natalya as she spoke to Justin Dhillon of the TWC Show.
There was a point in the conversation when Natalya brought up the May 2024 NXT talent releases. She stated that Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque is known to hire people back.
The other great thing about Triple H that I love is that he gives people second chances. So, yes, this week we saw a lot of people get cut from NXT. He’s been known to hire people back. Look at Tegan (Nox), look at Scarlett and Karrion (Kross). Look at, um, I’m just trying to think… Dakota (Kai), B-Fab, Tehuti (Miles). I’m just trying to think off the top of my head and yes, he’s been known to give people second chances and I think that’s so — people need to know that if they keep — if they want this badly enough, the brick walls are there for a reason and they’re there — this is quote from a book that I love but, ‘The brick walls are there for a reason… The people that don’t want it badly enough, they’re there to keep those people out.’
The first NXT Underground match for the women’s division took place in April and it saw Lola Vice clashing with Natalya. Natalya heaped praise onto NXT overseer Shawn Michaels. She stated that the match with Vice reminded her of how she felt when she went to NXT in 2014 to work with Charlotte Flair.
Actually, some of my best matches, I think all of my best matches for me or my favorite matches have been matches that I’ve lost. But they’re so meaningful to me because of the story, like behind the match with Charlotte (Flair) in 2014. At TakeOver, the very first TakeOver. It was only in front of 200 people. It was so special. The match that I just had with Lola Vice at NXT, same thing. It was just so special and Shawn Michaels was just so easy to work with, easy to collaborate with, so enthusiastic, so nurturing in a way that it was like it reminded me of how I felt back in 2014 working with Charlotte… I was like, I am so excited to keep growing.
Natalya remembers a conversation she had with Michaels and told him she cannot believe how many women are featured on NXT TV.
That’s what I love about NXT so much is that — and I have to give Shawn Michaels and Matt Bloom and the team there at NXT so much credit because they have a great team of writers. I don’t wanna leave anyone out so I won’t name their names but they know who they are. NXT has a great team of writers, coaches and producers and faculty that work together to basically build talent from the ground up and find something special inside people that they may never have known that they had. But they build characters. I said, the other day, to Shawn Michaels, I said, ‘I can’t believe how many women are used on the show.’ I think it’s like 18 women are used on the show every week and it’s not only are they used on the show, they’re building characters, they’re in storylines and they’re thriving, they’re excited, they’re challenged, they’re motivated, they’re driven, they’re hungry. You really watch them, from week-to-week, grow. Even just the growth that I see in Lola (Vice), from the first time that I worked with her until this huge Underground match that we had. It was so cool because that’s what excites me about wrestling is what Shawn Michaels is doing with talent at NXT. He’s helping them grow, he’s helping them evolve, he’s helping them build characters and stories.
The 5/21 episode of NXT has been taped and it’ll feature a tag match with Natalya and Karmen Petrovic taking on the duo of Lola Vice and Shayna Baszler.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the TWC Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
