Nattie Neidhart From the Top Rope

[MUSIC]

DAVID GREENE, HOST: I think I’ve made pretty clear on this show that I am a sports fan. But there’s a sport that never really grabbed me…

[SOUND OF PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING MATCH]

Pro wrestling. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m here for the crazy. But… is it even really a sport? I mean, aren’t the fights fake? Like they know who’s gonna win?

NATTIE NEIDHART: My grandfather would roll over in his grave if he heard me tell you that it was not real.

DG: Umm… Did she actually answer my question? I’m not so sure.

So I’m about to play you a conversation that might just make me a pro wrestling fan. At least a Nattie Neidhart fan. That was her voice right there. She’s part of a legendary pro wrestling family: the Harts. They lived in this enormous mansion at the top of a hill in Calgary, Canada. It was quaint, quiet. There weren’t any neighbors for miles, and it was the perfect spot to raise a family. And also train wrestlers.

Stu Hart was Nattie’s granddad. He was an amateur wrestler — right, so don’t tell him wrestling is fake. He bought the property in the ‘50s and created his own makeshift gym in the basement, aptly named The Dungeon.

[MUSIC]

It was cold and damp. Wooden walls lined the small space, with only a tiny window in the right corner allowing a sliver of light to sneak in. The floors were made of these teal green, flat mats, and there were holes in the ceiling from all of the heads that crashed through them. It was by no means fancy.

But what it lacked in aesthetics, it made up for in its ability to turn his family into some of the most impressive professional wrestlers in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. All eight of Stu’s sons would go into the wrestling business. Some even became top professional wrestlers in the WWE, with Hall of Famer Bret Hart and his brother Owen.

[MONTAGE OF WRESTLERS BEING ANNOUNCED INTO THE RING]

But Stu didn’t just train his family, anyone who was passionate about wrestling, cousins, friends of friends, whoever, he would teach them.

He was serious about how he trained his guys. He’d hold them in these intense submission holds, twisting them every which way to see how long they’d tough it out. The Dungeon was an anything-goes kind of place where Stu would put you through some of the worst pain in your entire life, so by the time you got out, you’d be ready for anything.

There was one rule, though: no girls allowed.

NN: He didn’t want his daughters to do it or his granddaughters to do it, because he knew firsthand it’s a tough world.

DG: Nattie Neidhart grew up around wrestlers. It wasn’t just when she went up to visit her grandfather, Stu, but her dad, Jim “the Anvil” Neidhart, was a part of a famous tag-team duo with her uncle Bret.

[MONTAGE OF WRESTLERS BEING ANNOUNCED INTO THE RING]

Nattie loved watching how they did back flips from the tops of the ropes or how her dad would slam his opponents down. She was itching to join in on the fun, but none of the women in her family wrestled, and she seemed to be the only one interested. So from an early age, she never even let herself think of maybe one day getting on the mat. For now, she’d stick to playing dress up with her sisters.

NN: We would all pretend that our husbands were on the road wrestling and we were their wives.

DG: There was, though, a small part of her that wanted to dream that maybe she could do it. Maybe she could be the first woman in her family to make a name for herself. But it felt like a long shot, a dream that maybe in another life she’d get to live out. It was ridiculous, right?

NN: My dad at the time was the tag-team champion. But I remember as a little girl holding that title and just being, like, intrigued by it. I felt like, “I maybe want to be more than just a wrestler’s wife.”

[THEME MUSIC]

DG: This is Sports in America. I’m your host David Greene. She’s a third-generation wrestler. Nattie is the first woman in her family to make it to the top ranks in the WWE. She’s become a six-time Guineness World Record Holder, a three-time WWE Champion, and a Women’s Wrestling Hall of Famer. More recently, she became an author with her debut memoir “The Last Hart Beating.” In the book, she describes how she finally got the courage to step on the mat, and the highs and lows of her nearly 20-year career in the WWE. She tells us about living up to her legendary family name and why her legacy is so much more than what we see on TV. We also ask the question fans have been asking of WWE for decades: If the matches are already predetermined, do we even really call it a sport?

[SOUND OF NATTIE’S LAUGHTER, HER BEING ANNOUNCED INTO THE RING]

Nattie Neidhart, also known by her stage name Natalya, loves to play the heel, or bad guy, and I mean she’s really good at it. She’s known for her technical prowess and uses her aggressive, physical style to put her opponents in these dangerous submission holds.

[SOUND OF NATTIE BEING ANNOUNCED INTO THE RING]

Throughout the years, though, Nattie’s character has grown along with her, turning into a veteran who’s constantly proving why she deserves to be here. But even though Nattie’s character is based mostly on her real-life personality most of the time, it doesn’t really have to be.

[MUSIC]

To really understand this kind of wrestling, we have to know how it works, and it’s all based on kayfabe. The word emerged as a way to describe the professional wrestling world.

Kayfabe is almost like an inside joke that everybody’s in on. Fans and wrestlers know that everything, from the matches and feuds to the romantic relationships and familial ties, it’s all scripted. But even though everyone knows it’s all staged, they all act as if it were real. It’s almost like this unspoken rule to hold onto the illusion of reality.

This leaves a lot of people skeptical of actually viewing WWE as a legitimate sport, I mean, sure, you have to be strong. It takes a ton of training and athleticism, but does it even matter if everything is already predetermined?

What is your pitch to newcomers? I mean, for people who have always thought of it as some sort of niche thing that they’re not interested in, but they’re curious about it now, what’s the opening pitch like for people who are like, “Is this MMA? Is it boxing? Is it wrestling like college?” Like how do you pitch the sport for people who are curious?

NN: It’s a little, it’s, that’s such a great question. It’s entertainment. So the way that I look at it as like, and listen, I’ve grown up in a huge wrestling family.

DG: Dynasty, I think I would say. We can say dynasty.

NN: Dynasty. So the biggest takeaway for me is storytelling. And so, why we love, why my husband and I, we have tons of shows that we watch on Netflix, tons of shows that we watch on. I love a good cold case, murder mystery. I love all of, like…

DG: Oh yeah, I’m with you on that.

NN: We just, like, I love stories. And I love when I can dive into a story and I can start watching, I’m big on documentaries too. I love watching a documentary on someone and learning about them. And, I think with WWE is that people are realizing that our show is a lot about storytelling. And it’s a lot about characters. And the thing about, and again, I know a good thing or two about a great book. You want to see what’s next. You wanna see when you turn, like I wanna, when I get to the end of a chapter of a great book, like I wanna know, like I want it to be where that chapter is so good that I can’t wait to turn the next page.

DG: Yeah.

NN: And so with WWE, we have Monday Night Raw, which is on Netflix every Monday. And then we have SmackDown on Fridays, that’s on the USA Network. Both shows, with Raw being number one, SmackDown being number two, they’re the longest reigning episodic TV shows in television history.

DG: It’s amazing.

NN: So it’s incredible, but one of the reasons why, and especially now more than ever, is because when you get to the end of the episode, you can’t wait for next week because you can’t wait to see what’s gonna happen.

DG: And you invest in the characters, right? I mean, you’re investing in, in characters, which makes it different from, from other sports because you’re in…

NN: Exactly, you invest in the characters you get into… It’s like a good movie, it’s like a good mini-series. It’s like people telling me that they binge-watched Sopranos. My husband’s just been, he hadn’t seen Sopranos before and he was like, “I just gotta watch Sopranos, I gotta get to the next episode.”

DG: Yeah.

NN: It’s like that with WWE, except there’s no ending. And so there’s no, like, for example, everybody that tuned in to SmackDown last Friday. We saw the return of somebody that hadn’t been in WWE in 10 years. Her name is AJ Lee. Well, tonight, everybody is like, “What’s gonna happen? Are they gonna do something on the show? I can’t wait to see what AJ is gonna say. I can’t wait to hear her speak.” Because they saw the last show and they were like, “I can’t wait to get to the next chapter.” That’s what I love about the company is that they’re stories, and also especially right now more than ever, I love that it’s not just like, “Hey, we’re just going to, you know, we just want we just want this certain group of people,” like the company right now is more inclusive than it’s ever been. Our women’s division, our women’s division currently is the best it’s ever been. And it’s because we’re celebrating people from every walk of life. You know, we’re celebrating athletes, we’re celebrating people that have grown up in wrestling, we’re celebrating our legends, we’re celebrating musicians. The company has become where, you’ve got a little something for everyone.

DG: Yeah.

NN: You want a monster? You got Nia Jax. You want somebody that like… because Nia is one of my favorite characters on the show because she is the ultimate bad girl. And it’s like when you watch The Little Mermaid for example, like, Nia is like the villain in The Little Mermaid, like Ursula. I’m not saying that to be mean, but she loves playing the role of the villain. But you need that in a movie.

DG: Absolutely.

NN: She’s not the Wicked Witch per se, because the Wicked Witch was… Listen, the Wicked Witch of the West was never as tough as Nia Jax, but Nia Jax is the best female heel in the entire company because she loves playing the bad guy. She loves being the villain. And I will tell you from experience, it’s the most fun.

[MUSIC]

DG: WWE is famous because of these flashy moves and over-the-top characters. The theatrics add to the appeal and make it that much more engaging for fans. Look at John Cena, the ultimate good guy, famous for his “You can’t see me” catchphrase…

[SOUND OF CROWD CHANTING JOHN CENA’S CATCHPHRASE]

… Or Dwanye “The Rock” Johnson, who used his charisma in the ring to go from beloved wrestler to Hollywood superstar…

[SOUND OF THE ROCK BEING ANNOUNCED]

… Or rising star Rhea Ripley, whose dark, gothic persona and dominant in-ring performance have gotten everyone obsessed with “Mami.”

[SOUND OF CROWD CHANTING FOR RHEA RIPLEY, HER RESPONDING]

Everything from the clothes to their catchphrases to their iconic music makes pro-wrestling feel like a spectacle. And believe it or not, it all goes back to Nattie’s family.

Nattie’s grandfather, Stu Hart, was an amateur wrestling champion and was set to represent Canada in the Olympics, but it was canceled because of World War II. He stopped wrestling altogether, but he loved the sport so much, he still wanted to keep it in his life.

So he started promoting it instead. He teamed up with George Wagner, also known as Gorgeous George, to create Stampede Wrestling. But Stu was really old-school. The wrestling he knew was technical and more about how much pain the other person could tolerate. George, though, had different ideas.

NN: Gorgeous George helped my grandfather run his promotion better because he said, “Stu, can’t just make it about, you can’t just make your promotion about wrestling. You got to make it a show. You got to make it a spectacle. You got to make characters.” So a great story that I have in my book is, my grandmother helped run Stampede Wrestling. My grandmother, Helen, she was like, you know, she had a crazy high IQ, she’s a valedictorian of her class, she graduated high school when she was 16, but she was the brains behind Stampede Wrestling. So with the help of Gorgeous George, my grandparents learned how to run their company better, but when Gorgeous George came to wrestle for my grandfather, my grandmother Helen said to him, “I have a suggestion for you. For your entrance, why don’t you come out to music?” And my grandmother went to the Calgary Public Library and she rented out a song for him called Pomp and Circumstance.

DG: What?

[MUSIC]

Yeah, the entrance music that Nattie’s grandmother Helen suggested wasn’t the part of the song you usually hear at graduations. But it was what helped turn Gorgeous George into one of the world’s first sports entertainers. He had this curly, bleached-blonde hair and wore extravagant robes, often with sequins or feathers, and most of the time, in a blinding bright pink color.

[MONTAGE OF BROADCASTERS ANNOUNCING GORGEOUS GEORGE]

NN: She was very smart, and so she had the kind of like forward thinking that she was, like, with his character, he comes out with a comb and his wife is brushing his hair and he was very over the top. You know, he had a character, Gorgeous George had, he was one of the first professional wrestlers to have, like, a very over-the-top character. So that day my grandmother rented out, from the Calgary Public Library, she rented out that music for Gorgeous George and he came out to that music from that day forward. And he was the first wrestler to come out to the ring with music. And I tell that story because, you know, people don’t know that story, but I write about it in my book because my family has been so embedded in professional wrestling for as long as I can remember going back to way before I was born. And then of course, my grandfather had this, you know, extremely successful promotion called Stampede Wrestling. And then he had sons that ended up, all of his sons wrestled. And then all of his, he had four girls and eight boys. His kids were all involved in the industry in some way, shape, or form. And then his daughters all married wrestlers. So it was just like my whole family. My mom married a wrestler. My uncles were all wrestlers. And in a family full of professional wrestlers, it was just, it’s in our, it’s everything we are.

DG: Even though everyone in her family was somehow involved in the wrestling world, the patriarch, Stu discouraged any of the women from getting on the mat themselves. Coming up next, we hear about how one of the biggest obstacles in Nattie’s career was her own family.

[MIDROLL]

DG: Welcome back to Sports in America. I’m your host, David Greene. From a young age, Nattie Neidhart was always fascinated by wrestling, seeing all of the members in her family soak in the limelight. It was intoxicating.

But Nattie’s grandfather, Stu, never wanted his daughters to get involved in it. He knew firsthand just how dangerous the industry could be.

You said something in your book about your family that really hit me. You know, you’re from a big family and you said, “When you’re in a big family, you have to make a choice. Like, do you want to do something to stand out and make yourself bigger, or do you make yourself smaller to fit in?” I feel like that’s the kind of thing that a lot of people can relate to who are in kind of big, you know, crazy families. What… Say more about that.

NN: For me, when I was growing up, like, because, you know, when you’re around all a bunch of legends, you know, when you walk into my grandfather’s house… My grandfather had a very famous home. It’s now a historical site. But my grandfather had everybody from Andre the Giant to Harley Race to Jake Roberts to Greg Valentine… You have all these legends coming into the house, like some of the greatest professional wrestlers that ever lived. By the time I was old enough to know what any of this was, to me, it can be so intimidating because there’s just all of these very strong…

DG: I’m sure.

NN: … strong people around.

DG: Yeah, it’s like, what’s going to be my role in all this? I mean, I’m sure it was a lot of pressure.

NN: And especially, like, the girls, my grandfather was very traditional. He didn’t… he respected female wrestlers, but he didn’t really want his daughters doing it. He didn’t really want his granddaughters doing it because back when he was promoting, it was such a niche thing where women just weren’t really that involved in it. And so while my grandfather, he respected women that actually got on the mat and did it, like women that were, like he had actually several women wrestlers working for him, and he was so much about supporting women that did it, but he didn’t want his daughters to do it or his granddaughters to do it, because he knew firsthand that it’s a tough world, you know? Like…

DG: What’s tough about it? What do you think his worries were? And I know you had your own doubts about doing it too. What was the worry?

NN: Well, first of all, it’s women, back in the day, back when my grandfather was a promoter and back when, you know, I mean, it’s really only been in the last 10, 15, 20 years that women have had more of a prominent role in it. But the industry is very hard for many reasons, because for a long time, it was like, there weren’t guaranteed contracts back when my grandfather was promoting in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, even in the ‘90s, like guaranteed contracts are, you know, basically like stability. You know, you’re going to get paid this, no matter what. Back when my grandfather was promoting, if you got injured in the 1960s or ‘70s or ‘80s, you, there was no, you didn’t get a paycheck if you got injured. You got paid if you worked and you wanted to work a lot because then you’d make more money. Whereas now, the industry is so different because of how it’s structured. that like, for example, if I were to break my leg tomorrow, WWE would still pay me. They would get the best medical care in the world for me. They would get me, you know, I would have the best of everything and I would still get paid.

DG: That was not the case back in the day.

NN: Well, back in the day, no. And that’s the thing is that like, that’s why a lot of wrestlers would tough it out.

DG: Mm-hmm.

NN: They would work through, and that’s not just in professional wrestling. That’s the case with a lot of sports too.

DG: But why’d you decide to do it when you were young? Like, why’d you decide to take the risk despite sort of your grandfather being worried, your family being worried about you?

[MUSIC]

NN: Because I was always fascinated with it. From when I was young, my sisters and I were playing a game and we would all dress up, when we were little girls, you we were 8, 9, 10, we would dress up as a wrestlers’ wives. So my older sister would dress up as the British Bulldog’s wife, Diana. And then my little sister, she would dress up as Linda Hogan. And then I would dress up as Rick Rood’s wife. And so we would all pretend that our husbands were on the road wrestling, and we were their wives. And we would all, like, we would walk around the house and we were just little kids, but we pretend to be the wrestlers’ wives. It was a really fun game that we played, and I remember it vividly. But the thing with like my dad at the time was, the tag team champion. He had just won the tag titles with my uncle Bret.

DG: Mm-hmm.

NN: And I remember taking my dad’s title out of his suitcase, and he had a little carry on. And I took his championship out of his suitcase. And I remember like my sisters didn’t care about the title, not because they didn’t, they just, they weren’t interested in it. But I remember like as a little girl holding that title and just being, like, intrigued by it. Like I really like, felt, I felt even from a young age, I was like, this is fascinating. This is, I even from that young age, I felt like I maybe want to be more than just a wrestler’s wife.

DG: Oh, I love that.

NN: So I took the title out of my dad’s suitcase, and I didn’t put it back in. So my dad went to the…

DG: I’m gonna hold on to this thing. This could be mine.

NN: Yeah, and then so he went to the airport and he realized it wasn’t in his bag and it caused a whole bunch of chaos that day, which, again, I write about in the book. But I think from a young age, I was just fascinated by it, but I also felt like, “I gotta like keep this down,” because like my grandfather didn’t like want the women doing it, my dad did not want me getting into wrestling at all for the same reasons that my grandfather didn’t want his daughters getting into it, because it was very much a man’s back in that day and back in the day. So my dad, you know, we wouldn’t go to WrestleMania when we were little kids. My dad was in the second WrestleMania. We weren’t, we didn’t go to, we didn’t go to shows. We didn’t. My dad was like, listen, the backstage, the locker room, it’s not a place for kids.

DG: Well, your uncle too, you wrote about a conversation with your uncle, Bret, right, where he was trying to talk you out of this when you were little?

NN: And that’s why I chose to have Bret do the introduction to the book, because he wrote something so beautiful for me that we had never, I had never shared it with anybody. And so he wrote something so beautiful for me that was like, when, when I was trying to get into wrestling, when I first told Bret that I wanted to start wrestling, it was a year after my uncle died. My uncle Owen died tragically in the ring. That was the year that, like, the following year… Owen died in 1999, but for me, 2000, I told Bret, “I want to get into wrestling.” And Bret said to me, he’s like, “Absolutely not.” Like he really, really shot it down, because you have to put yourself in Bret’s shoes. His brother just died.

DG: Owen Hart was a two-time Intercontinental Champion, four-time World Wrestling Federation Champion, and Professional Wrestling Hall of Famer. He had this long, floppy blonde hair and snide smile. In real life, he was this charming, mild-mannered family man.

[MUSIC]

But in the ring, he was this charismatic, arrogant heel, always fighting with his brother Bret.

[MONTAGE OF OWEN AND BRET HART FIGHTING AND WRESTLING]

He was one of the rising stars of the WWF at the time. But his career was cut short on May 23, 1999.

[NEWS CLIPS ABOUT OWEN HART’S DEATH]

None of the fans actually saw what happened, just the aftermath

Do you mind, if it’s not too painful, reminding us what happened to your uncle Owen, just so people sort of can understand that story and how hard it was on your family?

NN: Yeah, well in a nutshell, my uncle died in the ring. He was 34 years old, and he was participating in a stunt that had gone wrong. He was supposed to descend from the ceiling. And I won’t get into all the details and the particulars, but the harness that was holding him, it wasn’t meant, it was not the proper harness. It was meant to hold only six pounds. It was supposed to be a cool entrance. That was what he was supposed to have, was like a cool entrance. So when we see like, NSYNC or Janet Jackson, like, you see, know, videos of them descending from the ceiling and it’s really, really cool. It was meant to be a spectacular entrance and then it was just, there was a defective… something with the clip, it was only ever meant to hold six pounds, the wrong clip was put on it. Owen fell to his death at a pay-per-view called, I think the pay-per-view was called Over the Edge, if I’m not mistaken. But it was a pay-per-view, his match was one of the first that was on the show and he died, like right then and there he died in the ring. So it was the most, I think, the most tragic thing, sad thing, hard thing. It was the most tragic event that’s ever happened in professional wrestling because Owen was so beloved. He was so, everybody loved Owen. And I just think that it was just such a hard time for everyone, you know, for the company, for WWE, for my family, for my uncles, aunts, my mom, my grandfather. I think it was the hardest time in our entire lives.

DG: I’m so sorry that you went through that. It really, that must’ve really shaken your family. And I’m just, I’m struck that you, then like a year later, you’re sort of in this moment of decision on your own as to how much to invest in this, in this sport.

NN: Well and that’s why for me, I was like, “I know, I really, there’s something pulling at my heart that tells me I wanna do this.” But then of course my family was so shattered because of it. My grandmother passed away a few years after that. My grandfather died, once my grandmother passed away, my grandfather died quickly after that. But my grandmother especially, my grandmother Helen, Owen’s passing, she couldn’t get over it. You know, she just, it just was something that she didn’t recover from, I think, like witnessing it. ‘Cause I was, you know, currently living at the, at the hard house at the time and around my grandparents a lot. Like Owen’s family, they, you know, his wife, his kids, it was just such a hard time for everyone, but especially them because Owen’s children were so little, you know, they were just little kids and his wife and him were about to move into like a, they’d been building their dream home together.

[MUSIC]

It shattered our family. People to this day still talk about it, and Owen was just so special. So special to our entire family, but so special to the entire wrestling community and he was so young. So it was just, it was very, it was, I don’t go into crazy detail about it, but, in my book, but I will say that it was an incident that changed our family forever. And again, there’s scars that you never really heal from.

DG: Yeah. No, and it, I mean, he died doing the thing that your family loves so much, which is, you know, it, you know, every death is tragic, but it’s like, it wasn’t like a random thing. It was like doing the thing that, that you and your family like are, are built on.

NN: Yeah, and that’s the thing is that, like, it was a tough thing for our family after he died because it’s like, do they, you know, do we just pick up and it’s business as usual? Because also my family, that’s, that was all that we ever knew. That was all my grandfather ever did. That was all of his kids. That was all like, it was a big part of like, we don’t just, we can’t just stop because this is how we feed our families. So, and it was, you know, it was just a very tough time for us. And, you know, it’s, still, I still think about Owen. I think about Owen, I think about him all the time. I wish he was still here today so I could talk to him and ask him, “Hey, am I doing good enough? Am I, like…” I wish I could ask him for advice.

DG: So you can understand Bret’s apprehension. He didn’t want to lose his niece, or anybody in his family, in the ring ever again.

NN: Bret and I have a very close relationship and he is also kind of like a father figure to me. And he’s like, “Nattie, you’re too smart, you’re too pretty, you’re too, you bring too much to the table to do this, and this really hurt our family.” And then, a few days later, Bret came down to the dungeon where I was training, and just starting my training, like my first months of wrestling training and Bret waited for me after my practice and he was like, “Hey, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that I was wrong to tell you not to do this.” So he realized that he actually did so many incredible things in the industry. He got to see the world. He got to see the world, he got to make money, he got to meet extraordinary people, he got to touch people’s lives in a way that he never…

DG: And he didn’t want to deprive you, like he didn’t want to deprive you of that.

NN: And he’s like, yeah, he’s like, “Who am I to tell you not to do this?” He’s like, “I’ve had the most incredible life because of pro wrestling.” And so it’s funny because after I was done writing this book, it really occurred to me that I owe everything in my life to professional wrestling. Like everything I have, everything, my relationships, my home, my family, you know, my ability to take care of my family, all my passions, the things that make me happy, the things that set my soul on fire, I have it because of wrestling. Like, and it’s such a cool thing because some people go their whole lives and don’t have that feeling of inner fulfillment. For me, I’m like, “I can’t stop thinking about what I love. It sets my soul on fire.” It’s like, I can’t believe that two decades has like flown in WWE because I love, I love what I do and I love my job and I love, I just, I feel alive.

DG: Nattie grappled with the idea of becoming a professional wrestler herself. Even though her uncle Owen’s death devastated her family, she couldn’t help but shake the feeling that she should get on the mat.

She would spend hours watching her cousins train down in the Dungeon, her eyes lighting up with each move. But she could never bring herself to actually get in. Nattie was nervous she’d somehow embarrass herself or even worse, get hurt. It was actually her then friend, now husband, TJ Wilson, or better known as Tyson Kidd, who encouraged her to finally get in the ring. She’d keep it as a secret from her grandfather but there was no denying she was a natural. She was flipping off ropes, soaring through the air, doing moves nobody in her family expected. Everyone could see that she was destined to wrestle, and in 2000, she decided to take the leap and fully commit. She started as a ring announcer and would do small shows with her family’s company, Stampede Wrestling. She even did some tours in Europe and Japan. But she had her eyes on something bigger. She wanted to follow in her family’s footsteps, she wanted to be in the WWE. But just because her family had ties to the company didn’t mean she was guaranteed anything. In many ways, these connections actually made it harder for her to break through.

I wanna get to your sort of big moment when you were signed. I love the 2007 story when you actually came into your own and got the big news. You were waitressing at the time? Do I have my timeline right?

NN: Yeah. I was waitressing.

DG: OK.

NN: I was waitressing at a restaurant kind of like Outback Steakhouse. It was called Montana’s, and it was in Canada, and I wrote about this in the book, but I just loved that job so much. Like I loved being a waitress, and I loved earning my own money and like, you know, it was so cool, but like the second I got…

DG: I married my waitress by the way, so I very much… My wife now owns restaurants, but when we met, she was my server at a Pittsburgh Steelers bar. So…

NN: I love that!

DG: I love the profession too, yeah. But anyway, so you’re waitressing…

NN: Yes.

DG: Take me there and sort of when you find out like, “OK, I might, I’ve gotten the call.”

NN: So for five years I kept sending in tapes and sending in tapes and sending in letters, because back when I was, back in that those days, I mean, emails were just kind of starting to be a thing but I would send in like highlight reels to WWE on like a VHS tape and hope that somebody would get them, like, I didn’t, I was just,, I don’t even know where I was sending it, I just thought I was sending it to Titan Towers in Connecticut, you know, and hoping that somebody would see, you know, that they would see the tape and they would think it was great, and that they would hire me but of course it didn’t work out that way.

NN: But you were dreaming. I mean, it’s, it’s, you were dreaming.

NN: For about five years, I tried to get hired and it was, I will say, and that’s one of the fun parts about writing this book. It was really tricky for me to get hired. And I appreciate that so much, because it was hard back then. And it’s, I think it’s just as hard now to get hired because the industry, even back then, was just so, so, so competitive. It wasn’t like, I didn’t have an in because my dad was a wrestler, or my uncles were wrestlers, or my grandfather was a wrestler. I mean, I think to this day, I would, I would say that it was harder for me. It was harder because my, Bret and Vince still had a lot of tension during that time because of things that had happened in Bret’s career. So I’m sure you read about and heard about the Montreal Screwjob and all that. So like, for me, and I bring that up because it wasn’t like, “Hey Bret, I know you’re one of the greatest professional wrestlers that’s ever lived, but can you make a phone call and get me hired?”

DG: Mm-hmm.

NN: It was like, they were still sorting through things from their relationship, but like, I never wanted to lean on Bret. I never wanted to ask my dad to make a call. I never wanted to ask my grandfather or my uncles. I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it.

DG: You want to earn it on your own, yeah.

NN: Yeah, and so I never, ever, ever involved them in that process.

DG: Nattie wanted to get into the WWE on her own, but right as she was getting her start, her family would land into one of the most infamous moments in wrestling history. Coming up next, we learn about the Montreal Screwjob.

[MIDROLL]

Welcome back to Sports in America, I’m David Greene.

[MUSIC]

At the heart of the Montreal Screwjob is Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. They were some of the biggest stars in the WWF. They also had one of the biggest feuds. I’m talking real-life screaming matches and full-on brawls backstage.

[SOUND OF BRET HART AND SHAWN MICHAELS FIGHTING]

In the fall of 1997, Bret was performing his final match in the WWF against Shawn. Producer Vince McMahon didn’t want him to leave as the champion, but Bret didn’t want to lose to Shawn, well… ever, but specifically in Montreal, where the show was held, because it was his home soil. So they all agreed to disqualify the match.

[SOUND FROM THE MATCH BETWEEN BRET HART AND SHAWN MICHAELS]

Everything is going as planned, but at about the 20-minute mark, the referee calls the match and Shawn is declared the winner.

[SOUND OF BROADCASTERS ANNOUNCING SHAWN MICHAELS AS THE WINNER]

You can hear the announcers’ confusion and you can see the shock in Bret’s face when he realizes he had just gotten screwed. In the aftermath of the screwjob, the relationship between the Harts and Vince McMahon was tense. Bret’s brother-in-law, Davey Boy Smith and Nattie’s dad, Jim Neidhart, broke their contract in solidarity. So, Nattie’s chances of getting into the WWE were getting slimmer by the minute. For about five years, she keeps sending in tapes without ever hearing back, that IS until January 4, 2007.

NN: I was just, I like, screamed and jumped around and like, I told everyone. I was like, I went into my waitressing job and I was like, “Guys, I’m so sorry, but I’m giving my two weeks notice because I got hired by WWE!” Like I was, I couldn’t even believe it. It was the best feeling and it was, still to this day. And I think that’s what’s actually kept me hungry and motivated to this day is that I never forgot that feeling. I never forgot that feeling of being so excited, so hungry and having that dream to chase that, you know, I hear Dwayne Johnson talk about it a lot. He named his production company Seven Bucks because he always remembered what it was like to be poor. He never forgot the hunger.

DG: I want to ask you about that, that date, the chapter, the debut, because it really, it, um, and I know you don’t want to give away too much of your book, but I would love for you to tell me whatever you’re willing to, but it was, it was, you had your first TV, WWE TV opportunity and they were asking you, they wanted to, to rehearse the script with you before they actually filmed. Um, and you were up against, I think a duo, and one of the women was Cherry.

NN: Cherry, she’s my best friend to this day. Yes.

DG: That’s awesome.

NN: Yeah, so Cherry, it was my big day, and I was so excited, and I wanted to impress everybody, especially the upper management. You wanna always make a great impression, but the pressure is high. This is everything that I had been working for. So my debut in WWE on SmackDown, when I finally made it to SmackDown, I’ll keep it tight. I was supposed to, we were in rehearsal and I… we were going over what I was gonna do on the show. So during the rehearsal, it was like, “OK, you’re gonna slap Cherry, and you’re gonna do this…” And of course I was thinking like, “I gotta make sure I like do this, and make sure everybody thinks it’s great, and I impress Vince.” And so during the rehearsal, I hauled off and slapped Cherry. But like, I’m telling you…

DG: Hard, right? Hard.

NN: Dave, Dave, I’ve never, I don’t know what it was, but all the stars aligned and it was like a gun going off. It was like, “Oh my God,” like I like, everybody’s eyes were like, “Oh, my god.” And Cherry just looked at me stunned. And I was like, “Holy [bleep], I just gave the slap of a lifetime during a rehearsal,” and then Cherry’s like, “Don’t even worry.” Anyway, they were like, “Take it easy.” Like, “This is just a rehearsal!”

DG: Yeah, “slow down.”

NN: I was so excited, but it’s funny because nobody got mad at me. I think in that moment during the rehearsal, I think Vince could also see how much I was excited and I was trying so hard.

DG: Mm-hmm.

NN: I was trying so hard to please everyone, you know, and it was, cause I was new and I was inexperienced. And so I was like, I thought that, you know, rehearsals are a walkthrough. Now, you know, like…

DG: Oh, everyone can relate to that, I think. Like you wanted to prove yourself.

NN: And so she ended up becoming my best friend that day. And um…

DG: She still remembers the slap?

NN: She still remembers the slap, always. She always reminds me of it. But she and I became like, she taught me the ropes of the road. We became best friends. She lives like 10 minutes from me. And I see her and talk to her almost every day.

DG: I love that.

NN: But she’s a great girl and she’s, I always remembered the slap and I was always like, “Listen, I’m gonna take care of this girl forever because of that.”

DG: This story of Nattie’s slap begs the question: If it’s all scripted, does that even make it a sport in the first place?

Well, Nattie, can I… this actually raises one of the central questions I really, really wanted to ask you. I mean, like, you talk about the script, you talk about rehearsing for an event like that. I mean, how much of your profession is sports, and how much of it is entertainment?

NN: Well, it’s… The big thing with WWE above, I think, everything is that we are entertainment. So as much as it is a sport and you have to be extremely well trained, because the training is extensive. Like, before anybody gets to do anything on television in a physical capacity, you have to be trained. But it’s also very much entertainment, and it’s very much like what we were talking about earlier about storylines, and the thing is that when you look at amateur wrestling, for an example, they’re going in there, it’s instincts. They’re not talking about what they’re gonna do with each other beforehand. It’s like instincts. It’s like, “Hey, this is you versus your opponent.” Whereas with WWE, everything we do is about what is best for the story.

DG: Mm-hmm.

NN: And maybe I’m giving too much away, but also, to do this well and to be a great storyteller here, you also have to be really good at the athletic part. You can’t, at the end of the day, you’re doing your job in between the walls of those ropes. You know what I mean? So when the bell rings, you have to be very well trained because it’s very intense. So…

DG: I think you could say the least if you’re watching as a spectator. It’s, yeah…

NN: Yeah, it’s very, very intense and we have some of the best athletes in the world working with us. We have athletes that work for us, and sometimes the greatest athletes in the world can’t handle what we do because there’s nothing like it.

DG: Yeah. Well that, that’s, that was my question. Like, is it, like, how do you, as an athlete, pour yourself athletically and authentically into something that is so exhausting and physical, even if it’s different than like sort of a different, you know, a competition that’s not scripted out. Like, how is that experience different?

NN: Well, it’s a storyline. So it’s entertainment. And as a woman, as a girl, as a woman, as a lady that’s grown up in a professional wrestling family, my grandfather would roll over in his grave. If my grandfather would roll over in his grave, if he heard me tell you that it was not real. And he would roll over in his grave if he heard me say the word fake.

DG: Mm-hmm.

NN: So I’ll never, ever, ever say that. But here’s the thing. It’s a storyline. So when you watch a movie, you know, when you’re watching a movie or you’re watching your favorite show, you know that somebody has written the movie. You’ve written the movie.

DG: Right.

NN: So you can put two and two together as far as like, listen, if it’s Nattie versus Bianca Belair next week on Monday Night Raw, I’m not just gonna go in there and break Bianca Belair’s ankles and try to beat her for real. You know, we’re gonna do what’s best… Listen, I would love to beat Bianca Belair, but in a real fight, she would beat my ass.

DG: Throughout her 20-year stint in the WWE, Nattie has become a source of wisdom for up-and-comers. She even trains people in her own version of the Dungeon. But some of the biggest lessons she’s imparted have been out of the ring.

Well, what do you tell young girls because it, I know you brought up mentorship, and I know how important mentorship is for you right now in your career. Like what, what, are some of those relationships like with younger girls who are thinking about wrestling, dreaming of being you, what do, what do you tell them?

NN: So I always tell people that want to do this, guy or girl, be a student of the game. Watch everything. Learn about everything. Learn about what you like. Learn about what you don’t like. Learn about who you like, who you want to channel, and the biggest thing is, guard your reputation with your life.

DG: Hmm. Why do you say that?

NN: Because it takes a lifetime to build an amazing reputation, and it takes one moment to ruin all of it.

[MUSIC]

I think about it even when people come to signings, or even when people, when fans are coming to airports. I know it’s very challenging sometimes when you’re racing to a gate and there’s like 50 wrestling fans that are there and they want your autograph. It’s so easy to, like, get overwhelmed. But remember, this might be the very first time that they, and the only time that they ever get a chance to meet you. So remember how you talk to them. If somebody is coming to do an autograph signing, I try my absolute hardest to make it a great experience for everyone. And even if it takes a little longer, I try to like, that might be the only time they meet you, you know? And they’re going to remember that experience for the rest of their life. I think the industry and having worked in WWE as long as I have, like it’s made me, I can truly say that it’s made me a more empathetic person, because we meet so many people that are just going through so much, and they use our industry and they use like our shows as an escape, you know? And when my dad was alive, that was the one thing that really connected us was wrestling. Even in his darkest hours, my dad was struggling so much with his health, as you’ll read about in the book, but wrestling was the one North Star for us. It was the thing that connected us. And so for people that wanna meet me, that wanna say hi to me, that wanna spend time with me, or that wanna take a picture with me, as much as I can, I’ll try to take a selfie with them. If they can see that I’m running to catch a flight or whatever, they can understand, but like, it’s just, to me, the second that they stop giving a [bleep] about me, that they don’t want the autograph, they don’t want the picture, they don’t want to meet me somewhere, that’s when you’re like, “Well, maybe it’s time to like leave this.” You know, like you do need to care about the people that care about you. And I think it’s the cool thing about WWE is that we do have such, like, such a nice strong connection with our audience. You’re so much more than just a wrestler, you know what I mean? We have the capacity to help people. And if you can do that for people, that’s one of the great things about when I started writing my book is like, this is not a wrestling book. This is a book about relationships. This is a book about survival. This is a book about, when people get done reading my book, I want them to, I want them to redefine the way that they look at success in their own life. So for me, Dave, like in a family that has done it all, my family, my, my dad, my grandfather, my uncles, like I was born into a bunch of a family full of legends. In a family that has done it all, I feel like I’ll really be the first person in my family to eventually one day leave this industry without being broke or broken.

DG: Nattie is the longest-tenured female wrestler in WWE, and she has no plans on slowing down anytime soon. She knows that what she’s building up isn’t just her career, but is upholding an entire legacy. Nattie still has the same hunger, passion, and drive since the first day she held up her dad’s championship belt.

NN: Wrestling has just given me everything. It’s given me everything. It’s given me good experiences. It’s given me hard experiences, but like, I learned, I’ve learned so much and it’s never ending. Like I get so excited just thinking about, like, I coach a wrestling class every Wednesday at my ring. I wrestle and coach at the class.

[MUSIC]

I get so excited about coaching and teaching other people about what I love that it, like, I can’t even think straight that whole day because I’m like, “We’re gonna do this, and we’re gonna do this.” I work with so many amazing people. I’m just very lucky that no day is ever the same. You know, it’s so stimulating. It’s so challenging. It’s so fun. But also, I said this recently, the second that this stuff gets easy, I don’t want to do it. I want to be challenged.

DG: Oh, that’s awesome.

NN: Yeah, I want it to be challenging. I want it to be hard. I want it to be. Because I love trying to solve the puzzle. You know what I mean? Like the second that it becomes easy is just, it’s not fun. I want it to be like, I want to figure out, you know, I’m wrestling a girl on Friday. She’s a legendary, her dad was a wrestler. Her mom was a wrestler. Her name is Faby Apache. She’s one of the most legendary female wrestlers in Mexico, like in the history of Mexico. I’m wrestling her on Friday for a show that WWE is now a part of called AAA. And I’ve been thinking about wrestling her and she’s been wrestling since she was, I think, 16 years old. And I can’t even sleep, Dave, when I tell you I’m thinking about ideas. Like, how are we gonna start this? And the drama for the ending and when I have her in the submission, and like… I have a world record for the most matches of any woman in the history of WWE. And I never stop getting excited about the possibilities of what’s next. I’m like, “Ugh, the magic we can create, and I want her to do this and I want to shine in my outfit.” And I’m like, it just, that kind of stuff is why like, if somebody were to ask me like, “Should I get into, should I get into this?” You know, it’s like, “Who am I to tell you not to do something that’s allowed me to have the best life ever?”

DG: Yes to that and Nattie, I’ve enjoyed this conversation so much. Um, I, yeah, I wanna get into it. You’ve persuaded me.

NN: Yes! Bring your wrestling boots down to the dungeon. I will meet you on Wednesday.

DG: That is both terrifying and awesome. But I will meet you there any time.

NN: Aww, no, you’re always welcome.

DG: That was Nattie Neidhart. Her debut novel “The Last Hart Beating” is out now.

Next time, on Sports in America…

[THEME MUSIC]

RYAN JENSEN: The sound of a stadium, the air coming out of a stadium, is something I’ll never forget. When he caught that ball, the stadium was rocking. And then all of a sudden it went, I mean, you could hear a pin drop.

DG: The center for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Ryan Jensen. Also known as the guy who was responsible for protecting the one and only Tom Brady on the field.

RJ: It’s funny, my son’s always joking around. We’ll be in public, and we’ll start a conversation and somebody will come up to me and kind of recognize who I am. And my son will go, “Yeah, Tom Brady touches my dad’s butt.”

DG: Even with a Super Bowl ring on his finger, Ryan can admit that none of his success was ever supposed to happen to him. It was supposed to be his brother’s.

RJ: That was always his dream. You know, he was always the better athlete, always the bigger, more developed guy. He just couldn’t, his luck was, was, was [bleep].

DG: That’s next time, on Sports in America.

This is Sports in America.

I’m your host, David Greene. Our executive producers are Joan Isabella and Tom Grahsler.
Our senior producer is Michael Olcott. Our producer is Michaela Winberg, and our associate producer is Bibiana Correa.

Our engineer is Mike Villers. Our tile artwork was created by Bea Walling.

Sports in America is a production of WHYY in Philadelphia and is distributed by PRX. Some of our interviews were originally created by Religion of Sports, with special thanks to Adam Schlossman. You can find Sports in America on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, the iHeart Radio app, you know, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Host: David Greene
Executive Producers: Tom Grahsler and Joan Isabella
Senior Producer: Michael Olcott
Producer: Michaela Winberg
Associate Producer: Bibiana Correa
Engineer: Mike Villers
Tile Art: Bea Walling

Sports in America is a production of WHYY, distributed by PRX, and part of the NPR podcast network.

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