Natalya Neidhart has been one of the pillar figures of the WWE Women’s Division for the past several years. She’s one of the rare female talents who is enjoying a career in wrestling way longer than her contemporaries. Her debut took place in 2008 when the Divas era was just settling in.
Those names Divas have mostly headed into retirement while she stayed as an active performer in the company. Moving on, Natalya Neidhart witnessed more eras with the WWE while being in the Women’s Division. That time essentially included the Women’s Evolution era where WWE gave opportunity for them to shine bright.
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As Evolution was on the rise, WWE was also tasked with crowning a new women’s champion for their developmental territory of WWE NXT which was going through a major revamp. An eight-woman tournament was held with Charlotte Flair and Natalya Neidhart standing as the final two who battled in the final match. Then, The Queen of Harts also was a regular fixture on the main roster, but she didn’t back down from appearing on NXT.
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Natalya Neidhart and Charlotte Flair had duties to fulfill
While being approached with the opportunity to wrestle Charlotte Flair, then emerging star power of the WWE Universe happily agreed to make a series of appearances in NXT as she witnessed it as a big opportunity. Speaking on WWE’s The Bump, Natalya Neidhart mentioned how the two have a common background of being a second-generation star and that they couldn’t resist sharing the ring.
“Before Charlotte was Charlotte and she was just a young, up-and-coming talent, she and I had a conversation where she kind of broke down and said to me, ‘I don’t know if I’m good enough. I don’t know if I could ever be as good as my dad. I don’t know if I can ever fill everybody’s expectations of what they have for me,’” Natalya Neidhart continued.
“This is way before she ever became a superstar in WWE, but she was just getting started at NXT, I remember saying, ‘I’ve been through all those things and I’ve had that feeling before of not being enough. We have to blaze our own trail here as women.'” (quotes courtesy Wrestling INC)
The first clash between Natalya Neidhart and Charlotte Flair took place at WWE’s NXT TakeOver 2014 premium live event. The two competed in a 17-minute back-and-forth competition, where the latter name emerged to be the new NXT Women’s Champion. The two latter competed in multiple singles matches after that instance on the main roster.
