WWE Star Worked Through Illness In Recent Match, Praised For Dedication

WWE

Natalya has praised a fellow WWE star for their dedication after working through illness during a recent big match.

Last week on WWE Raw, Maxxine Dupri challenged Becky Lynch for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship.

The match ended when Lynch used her title belt as a weapon to get herself disqualified, ensuring she would keep the title.

In a post-match interview, Dupri’s voice was noticeably hoarse – that wasn’t due to the effects of the match, but because of an illness she’d already been dealing with.

Speaking on the Joe Vulpis Podcast, Natalya spoke about Dupri’s work ethic, saying:

“She works so hard. She’ll literally get off a plane after having done all these different things. I don’t know where she’s getting this energy. I wanna know what kind of coffee she’s drinking. But I don’t even think she drinks coffee. She’s just got this light in her that shines so brightly, so she pushes through.

“She had a match against Becky on Raw, their most recent match, it was their second match together, but her most recent match with Becky, she lost her voice. She was feeling really sick and she didn’t tell anyone. She was pushing through.

“But she sent me a little voice note during the day and she’s like, ‘I’m doing great, everything’s going great, I just lost my voice, I can’t talk.’ She had the match of her career that night. I was like, ‘You pushed through even when you were sick.’

“Because here’s the thing, and I say this all the time in our ring, and I know it sounds cold, I know it sounds insensitive, but to be at this level, to do the stuff that we do – not just in wrestling but in our case it is wrestling – if you’re sick and you’re getting an opportunity to wrestle Becky Lynch, a woman who’s main evented WrestleMania, on Monday Night Raw, on Netflix, Maxxine can’t go up to our bosses, she can’t go up to Triple H and go, ‘Hey, I don’t feel good today, I’ve got laryngitis and…’

“Now listen, the company’s very forward now, so they’re like, ‘No problem, we’ll get you the best (care), we’ll get you home,’ they’re great, but she doesn’t wanna do that because she knows that opportunity might not be there again. Next week something might change. Who knows.

“So if you are hungry and you want something, like if it’s WrestleMania, Cody Rhodes can’t just go like, ‘Hey, I don’t really feel good tonight, I’ve got food poisoning.’ No-one cares. No-one gives a s**t. If you want something, you’ve gotta push through, you’ve gotta fight.

“So Maxxine did that, she delivered, she did things that we were working on in The Dungeon. Intelligence is the application of knowledge. She went in there and did all the stuff we’ve been working on.

“I was showing her something I did with Charlotte Flair in a match in 2014, my favorite match that I was in, and I said, ‘Try this.’ And she did it. And she did it perfectly, and the crowd erupted.

“It makes me feel so good about paying it forward when I see other people get something from it. I felt like such a proud coach.”

If you use this transcription or any portion of it, please credit WrestleTalk.com and link to this page.

To make sure you stay up to date with all the biggest wrestling and WrestleTalk news, follow us on Threads by clicking this link!

• wwe
• Natalya
• Maxxine Dupri

Share this article with friends