The Dungeon lives on.
Recently, Liv Morgan spoke about becoming more confident as a wrestler thanks to Natalya and Tyson Kidd working with her in The Dungeon 2.0. Now, Natalya is opening up about the training classes she and Tyson run.
Speaking to Mark Andrews on My Love Letter To Wrestling, Natalya explained how she and TJ acquired their ring and says TJ trained Tyson Fury ahead of Crown Jewel 2019.
"So, during the pandemic, my husband and I being crazy and fanatical, we have to have a ring," said Nattie. "Even though we're very embedded in the business, we're still big fans of the business. We really love the business. TJ actually was gifted the ring. It was one of those things where he was like, 'Hey, I want a place where if anybody needs to work on stuff, they can come train.' So the powers that be in WWE were like, 'That's great,' because if people want to go over a match or, you know, if somebody like — TJ trained Tyson Fury. It's a place a safe private spot where people can work on their craft."
Furthermore, she spoke about how classes shift to cater to the multiple hats a wrestler has to wear at any given moment.
"Well, everything evolves and changes so fast that you have to really think on the fly. So it'd be kind of like an actor or going to an improv class. It's more than that, too. It's also for conditioning in order to stay in ring shape and be ready. To do what we do at the most elite level, you have to really keep your body in shape. Running on a treadmill, doing weightlifting, stuff like that. It's great. It's awesome. It doesn't condition you for the ring," said Nattie. "I love to weight lift. I love Olympic powerlifting. But I do that for my own aesthetic, and I like it as almost a hobby. For pro wrestling, the best conditioning and the best training for pro wrestling is pro wrestling and we work with — because there are mostly men that come to the dungeon I try to keep inviting the women to come. But there's a lot of men that train with us in the dungeon some really great up and comers that I'm like, I know they're going to be amazing in WWE one day or wherever they end up landing. But because we train with a lot of men, it also makes you really strong. You have to lift people of different body shapes and sizes. We have a guy there that's around five feet, we've got somebody there at 6'3, we've got a person there that's just started wrestling, one of TJ's friends that's been there for six months, all different skill levels, all different shapes, and sizes. It really teaches you like, 'Okay, this is what it be like to work Doudrop, and maybe this is what it would feel like if I was working Sasha,' and, 'What if I'm a good guy? What if I'm a bad guy?' In wrestling, you never know what role you're going to be in."
In line with Morgan saying she feels more confident, Nattie says she believes confidence is the greatest obstacle for today's wrestlers.
"I think the biggest thing, and I've heard Triple H say this. I think the biggest, biggest, biggest obstacle is confidence. So Triple H says when he's at tryouts, he wants to like see who stands out above everyone else. I understand that now. Because now that we're working with people, we have a friend that started training with us. I said to him, in the very beginning, his name is Khalil, and he's only 20. But, he's been a lifelong pro wrestling fan and he's a friend of ours, he asked TJ to help him. But why bring him up is because he's loved pro wrestling his whole life. But I felt like he was too shy. I was like, I don't know if he has the 'it factor' and the confidence. Confidence is going to be what takes you to the top. That's going to be what separates you from being a good athlete to being like, 'damn, this person stands out.' This person has that swagger. This person has that [the ability to] go from like, they were a great high school athlete to like, 'I'm gonna pay money to go and see them,' this person could Main Event WrestleMania," said Nattie.
"This kid that started training with us, I said that to him. About six months later, I said, 'I really didn't think you were you had that it factor about you.' Then we started to see it. Because he comes to The Dungeon like three times a week. Then, we were trying to show him how to be the bad guy. Once we saw that bad guy character come out. We were like, Okay, now I get it because he's loved pro wrestling his whole life. So he's emulating things that he's seen. Because if you just turned on WWE this week and were like, 'I want to be a wrestler.' That's cool, too. But it's so much deeper than that. Look at the greats, like Seth Rollins, like Edge, like Sasha Banks, they loved it their whole life. So they're drawing inspiration from Steve Austin. They're drawing inspiration from Eddie Guerrero. The drawing inspiration from Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, or whomever it is, you have to have that love for it. You still have to have that deep passion but the 'it factor' is what they are looking for. The confidence that inner 'I'm going to do this. I'm going to do whatever it takes,' and that's what I think that's what's gonna get you to where you need to be. You have to believe in yourself. If you don't, nobody else will," she concluded.
Currently, Natalya's trying to get on the WrestleMania 38 card in a tag team with Shayna Baszler. Learn more here.
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