To help promote tonight’s (Jan 31st) Total Divas season seven finale, former SmackDown Women’s Champion Natalya recently spoke with TV Insider to discuss the Women’s Royal Rumble, Ronda Rousey WWE debut and her experience on Total Divas. Highlights of the interview below.
On the Women’s Royal Rumble: “It was surreal. It’s been something that all of us girls have been wanting to be a part of for a long time. Before we’ve only seen Chyna, Beth Phoenix, and Kharma in the guys’ Rumble matches. So, for us to have enough women in both divisions and NXT come and be a part of this first-ever women’s Rumble with the women from the past who paved the way for us, it was such an honor to be a part of it.”
On Ronda Rousey’s WWE debut: “Every single person has an opinion. That’s such a fun part of our job. My husband, Tyson, is a producer at WWE, and we always have friendly exchanges of our opinions driving in our car from town to town. Was it the right way to debut her? Should she have debuted the next night on Raw or at WrestleMania? It’s hard to know what the answer is. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Ronda as an athlete. To me, just seeing her backstage as a friend, I picked her up off the ground when I saw her. It’s not my place to say if it was right or wrong. The other girls and I, we all have our own opinions. We can speak our minds. It’s a free country. For me, more than anything, I was just happy to see my friend.”
On wanting to work with Rousey in the WWE: “I’ll tell you one thing because I am in the women’s locker room. There is nothing but respect towards Ronda, no matter how anyone felt [about] how they debuted her. I think we are all excited about having her there because there are so many possibilities of what we can do with her. We are all wondering if she is going to be on Raw or SmackDown. I really want to work with her, because I know we would tear it up.”
Relationship with Lana: “Lana drives me crazy, to put it mildly. We tend to argue and make up. We have a strong friendship, but Lana is very strong-minded, which is a good thing. But she is also stubborn and likes things a certain way. I totally get that, but we both are strong-minded. That is why we clash at times.”
On the season finale of Total Divas: “The season finale story is powerful with TJ. One, we haven’t really shared to [with] the world yet. It shows that when one door closes or temporarily closes—because TJ never announced a retirement; TJ has no plans of ever announcing he is retired from wrestling—another door opened with a new role that is much better for him and his health. It’s nice to share this all with the world, to show there is so much you can do in this company besides being an active WWE Superstar.”
Natalya also discusses working with Beth Phoenix and Trish Stratus at the Rumble and the possibility of her own spin-off reality show
You can read the full interview here.
What did you think of the interview? Have you been tuning in to season seven of Total Divas? Would you like to see Natalya and Ronda Rousey square off? Let us know in the comments below!
