Natalya: “This Was Being The Change That We Have All Been Waiting For”

Natalya recently spoke with Yahoo Sports about her match in Saudi Arabia.  In case you haven’t heard, Natalya and Lacey Evans wrestled the first-ever women’s match in Saudi as part of WWE Crown Jewel.

I sure you will hear about it a few more times whether it’s Stephanie McMahon or Michael Cole plugging in the non-stop WWE self-promotion cycle.  While WWE will certainly promote it, it was definitely a feel-good moment on a show and weekend that had lots of not so lovely moments.

Natalya had this to say about her match:

“This was being the change that we have all been waiting for.  Being part of this incredible change that we were able to implement with our work, our body of work, our women’s evolution. It was one of the most impactful moments of my life. It was one of the most meaningful things that I’ve ever done. Knowing that I’m helping change the world.”

Whether or not the match will actually change the world or not, is yet to be seen.  The young ladies in the crowd certainly had to feel a bit more hopeful while they were watching it.

“The first thing I did was call my mom, it was three or four o’clock in the morning, but I called her and I just wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Of course my mom was up — she said she was changing the kitty litter — but my mom was so excited, my whole family was so excited.”

Since the match was a bit on short notice, how did the two ladies work out the match ahead of time?

“When we were putting together our match, our performance, I really wanted to think about what the story of the match was. For me, for this match, the story was not about me, not about Lacey, not about good versus bad, it was about respect. It was about athleticism, it was about showing and introducing the Saudi Arabian culture to what we do. So much of what we do — especially with this women’s evolution in WWE — is about pure athleticism.

Our match was only about 8-to-10 minutes with entrances, but we knew we had one chance to make this great impression. We didn’t want to get too heavy, we wanted to give them just a little taste of what we do.”

While it’s easy to pick on WWE and even Natalya, WWE deserves credit for making this match happen whatever the motivation or the circumstances that led to it happening.  It meant a lot to both the women in the match and I’m sure much of the women in the crowd.

• Natayla
• Crown Jewel
• women
• wwe

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