Natalya Discloses ‘Subconscious Fear’ During Vince McMahon Reign

Natalya has opened up about the difference between the old and new WWE management.

The wrestling veteran recently sat down with Ariel Helwani to officially announce her new Memoir. During the interview, she talked about things such as her long wrestling career, her decision to re-sign with WWE, and more.

The former Women’s Champion also went into detail about the difference between the old WWE management run by Vince McMahon vs the new management team led by Triple H and Nick Khan. Natalya explained that because her dad, wrestling legend Jim Neidhart lost his job a lot, she always felt the pressure to prove that she wasn’t unreliable when McMahon was in charge:

“To be brutally honest growing up in the business with a parent like Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart. My dad is you know, he’s one of my greatest inspirations in my life. But growing up my dad lost his job a lot. So for me always I think subconsciously even before I ever got to WWE, I always had this fear of like I have to make everyone happy.

I have to please everyone. I have to be the company girl. I have to be everything that my dad wasn’t. I have to be perfect. So whatever Vince wants me to do or whatever you know my boss wants me to do I just have to do what they want me to do.”

Later in the interview, Natalya discussed how things are much more relaxed under the new management and people are allowed to break the fourth wall. She claimed that for the first time in her long WWE career, she does not feel the pressure of being perfect:

“I feel like now for the first time in my 18 years of being in WWE and having grown up in it, I always felt and that’s what I was saying earlier, I just always felt like I had to be perfect. Especially when Vince McMahon was in charge, like I just had to be perfect.

I had to show him that I was going to be the exact opposite of what my dad was. I could be so professional and I could just do everything that everybody wanted and say all the right things and do all the right things. What I love right now is that Triple H and the powers that be, Nick Khan and our bosses, they’re not expecting us to be perfect. They’re not, you know, they’re letting us be real.”