After spending a decade and a half in the wrestling trenches, winning titles, having feuds, and returning to NXT ever so often to test the mettle of some of the promotion's next generation, Natalya has rapidly become the elder stateswoman of the WWE Universe, with her spot at the Hall of Fame a borderline lock even as her wrestling career is going strong.
Could Natalya keep her current schtick up indefinitely, working matches, forming short-term alliances, and working Premium Live Events as part of various feuds and matchups? Totally, but hey, even now, at 41 years old, the “BOAT” is still looking to test her own mettle against wrestling's very best, with one performer above all others on the top of her wrestling wishlist: Jade Cargill.
“With Jade, she has something that you can’t buy and you can’t teach. It’s in you. She has that ‘it’ factor. She walks out there and has a presence. She commands a room and has confidence. It is so important for little girls and boys to know that it’s all inside them,” Natalya explained on The Big Show with Rusic and Rose via Fightful. “Everything that want to achieve, all their dreams and hopes, it’s inside of them. When you see that confidence in Jade Cargill, it makes everybody else want to be confident and go, ‘D**n, I want to have that same energy.’ It made me want to be more confident. It’s truly believing in yourself. It’s a big adjustment, her coming to WWE, and adapting. It’s a very fast-paced machine. The stuff she did was amazing at WrestleMania. I was so proud of her, Naomi, and Bianca. They had incredible performances, and they couldn’t have had those performances without their opponents; Asuka, Dakota, and Kairi. I would love to face Jade. I would consider that a dream match for me. I want to make it happen. I would love for that to happen in 2024.”
If you're a woman in the WWE Universe, there are two lines of thinking when it comes to Cargill; some, like Chelsea Green, want nothing to do with “That Chick,” as she's taken two massive losses to Cargill in less than a week, whereas others, like Natalya, want to battle the best of the best, which the former TBS Champion undoubtedly has a chance to become. Though it's hard to tell what Paul “Triple H” Levesque has planned for Cargill in WWE, it's clear her future is about as bright as it comes.
Natalya is proud of her efforts against Roxanne Perez in NXT.
Going from future matches she'd love to work to her most recent effort within the WWE Universe, wrestling Roxanne Perez on the NXT after WrestleMania 40, Natalya reflected on her efforts against the “Prodogy,” telling The Big Show with Rusic and Rose that she has enormous expectations for the NXT Woman's Champion.
“I jumped at the opportunity to go to NXT. Some of the greatest moments of my career were at NXT, like my match against Charlotte Flair in 2014. NXT is also primetime television. Anytime you're on the USA Network, and it's during that timeslot, it's primetime TV, and we're one of the highest-rated shows on the USA,” Natalya told The Big Show with Rusic and Rose via Fightful.
“When I was asked (to go to NXT), it was a huge honor for me. I really wanted to go to NXT to work with more women. I probably have the world record for working with the most women in WWE history. I really wanted to work with women who are hungry and love this as much as I do like Roxanne Perez. I met her in the parking lot outside of a live event for a WWE show when she was a teenager, she was like 13. She came up to me, it's on tape because we were filming Total Divas, we shared this on social media, she came up to me and said, ‘I want to be a WWE superstar like you. How do I become that?' Fast forward to all these years later, and I'm wrestling her, and she's the NXT Women's Champion. We had a beautiful match. She was such a fantastic opponent and everything I had hoped for as an opponent. Our chemistry was amazing. I loved every second in there with her. It was magical. It's why I love what I do in WWE and why I jumped at the opportunity to go to NXT.”
While Perez is currently working a heel gimmick where she's forgone her normal optimism in favor of a new “mean girl” big not too dissimilar to her old pal Cora Jade, it must have been an incredibly full-circle moment to share the ring with a performer she watched on TV as a kid before she believed being a professional wrestler was even a possibility. And the best part? She got the win too, even if Lola Vice provided an assist in that department.
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