WWE’s Two-Time Women’s World Champion: Nattie Neidhart on Life, Loss, and Legacy

0:00Alright guys, welcome back to the show. So people ask me all the time, do you have favorites that have been on your podcast? And out of like 800 shows, I'm not going to lie to you. I have a few people that I just loved when I met them, like right away. And this woman is one of those people. I regret that we're doing this through Zoom today because the last time I think we had some wine in my wine room in my bar after we did the podcast with my family. But what we're going to do through Zoom today. And the reason I wanted to have her on is she's got a new book out. First, let me tell you the name of the book and then I'll properly introduce her.

0:29called The Last Heart Beating. And I read this entire book in two nights, you guys, and I couldn't put it down. It's that good. And she's a WWE legend. She's the most tenured WWE wrestler of all time on the women's side. And you guys all know I'm a huge fan of WWE. This is not a wrestling interview. This is a life interview. This is an overcoming dysfunction interview. This is a self-worth interview. It's actually a little bit of a spirituality interview too and how to persevere and win because she's won big time in her life. She's only in the Guinness Book of World Records like six times. And she's just a historical figure in the industry that she comes from.

1:07She's loved by everybody that knows her. Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, wrote the foreword. And when I read Dwayne's words about her, I just thought, man, I could have written the exact same words because I feel the same way about her. So, Natty Neidhart, welcome back to the show. Ed, you're so sweet. Thank you so much, so much for having me on. I can't thank you enough. Well, I love having you on. And it's been too long. It's been a long time. So let's talk about the book. Obviously, probably, I don't know, half my audience is probably WWE fans. The other half are not going to know some of the things we're talking about.

1:36So I want to navigate those two worlds pretty well. But what I want you all to know, first thing about Natty, is she comes from royalty, literally, in the industry that she comes from. So whether it be her uncles, her dad, you name it. Like, it's a legendary family. I think it's safe to say that there's the McMahons and there's probably the Hark family in terms of legendary families in the sport. So the first thing I wanted to ask you about, this sounds like an odd place to start, but you have dominant figures in your family, right? Like your dad was a dominant figure. Bret Hart's a dominant figure.

2:09Owen was before he tragically passed away. And it's difficult when you have a dominant person in your family to stick your own head up in life. So a lot of people listen to this. Maybe it's their dad. He's just a strong figure. or their mom was an imposing figure in their family, or you've got a grandfather who everybody talks about in a family. And a lot of times I worry about this with my own kids sometimes, Daddy. I've become a pretty well-known guy. Does it cause my kids to play small in their life? You talk about this exact thing in the book. So can you speak to that? Was it difficult to poke your own head up and not?

2:44You say in the book, the tendency was to want to be small and think small and play small in your life. I mean, that's a great question because it's really, especially initially in the book, it's really addressed. And like, when you look at my family, it's like, my grandfather was legendary. He's a WWE Hall of Famer. And then of course, he built everything. He was the root of greatness. Like he was the root of the tree so that we could all be the branches on that tree. So he was just massive. And then you look at the legacy of Bret Hart and the legacy of Owen Hart and the legacy of my dad, who is a WWE Hall of Famer, and then my uncles, the British Bulldogs.

3:20And so you have this family of greats, but they're all men as well. So there are these really strong male legends. And so for me, growing up in this family, I was the first female in this family to actually compete in the ring. um and i'm gonna be you know brutally honest i was probably the least likely to make it the least likely to survive why because pro wrestling it's for such a long time it's been very much a male dominated world until really the last five ten years it really really started to change around let's say 2015 when wwe put more of a focus on women um but culturally women in sports things just started to change you know you you saw more of a prevalence with women in sports not just in wwe but just like around the world so it took many many years for it to change but when i was growing up you know in the 80s 90s um it just women just weren't around wwe much there was just a few you know a few and a few far like there was maybe five women involved in wwe like in a great way in the 80s and then in the 90s maybe a little more and then the early 2000s we started to see more it's just the evolution of the way that women were kind of featured because again it's professional wrestling we saw you know the likes of hulk hogan and the ultimate warrior and macho man randy savage and of course my whole family doing you know my dad was part of the very he was in wrestlemania 2 with andre the giant um but but my family has done so much incredible work.

4:55But again, it was all males. So for me, growing up, I was like, do I stay small to fit in? Or do I get big to stand out? And so that's one of the things I love so much about the book is that I in writing the book, I was really able to explore that, like, like almost do a deep dive into like a psychology, like, what made me want to do this? What made me want to run hard with it? And what, like, how did I find my voice? Because for so, for so much of my youth and teenage years and my, you know, being an adult, like especially navigating my way through WWE in this very, you know, very strong male dominated world, I didn't feel like I had a voice.

5:36And so as you get through the book and closer to the end, that's one of the things I love about the book was that I really found my voice, but it went, I went through a lot of shit to do that. I always try to relate when someone's famous or successful, frame it to the person who's listening to this. And a lot of people are like, I'm more comfortable being small. Or my grandfather's the legend in my family. Or I don't even know what my message or my voice would be. I didn't. When I was young, I was just going to work. I didn't even know what my message, like who am I? What's my message going to be?

6:10and that's why the book is so good you think you're about to read a book about you know just your family which we're talking about in a minute which is an incredible story but you really don't you're really looking almost like a a master class on confidence and identity and in spreading your wings and becoming your own so what is something you'd share with someone who feels that way I'm small I'm always going to be small I'm invisible I'm always going to be invisible how how did you change that like literally how did you do it these are just such great questions. So really the first time that I could identify with like, hey, I need to be bigger.

6:45I need to do more. I want more. I need security. It was in my early teens when my dad lost his job. We lost everything. And I talk about it in the book. We weren't homeless because my grandfather opened up a room in his house for my mom and my sisters and I to live. So he only had one bedroom left. And so it was my mom's old room when she was a little girl. So in his house, of course, was built, you know, the Hart House was built in 1905. So it was a very, very old house. But it was my mom's room when she was a little girl. There was just one bed and it was just all that he had left. So my dad had lost his job in WWE.

7:26We moved into the Hart House and my mom and my sisters and I, we shared that bed for a couple of years. And so a lot of people don't know that, Like, granted, we weren't homeless, but we were not far from it. And my dad had lost everything. So he went from being this big, famous superstar in WWE to all of a sudden us, like, losing everything. Our car was repossessed. Our home was foreclosed on it. We didn't have anywhere to go but to go back to that, to my grandfather's house, go and live in that room. And I love the security that my grandfather offered because he was so warm and so loving and so comforting.

8:03But if we didn't have him, we would have been homeless. And so what was really cool was that right outside that room, the window in that room of my mom's bedroom when she was a little girl, outside the window, you could see the wrestling ring. My grandfather had a wrestling ring on his lawn. He built it, designed it, and then he left the ring on his lawn during the summers because the kids and everybody, it was our North Star. It was our foundation. It was our anchor. So when I would look out the window, the first thing I would see was the ring. And I didn't quite know. Like, I didn't know exactly why I was feeling the way that I was feeling, but I was drawn to that ring.

8:41Like, it felt like somewhere down there, something was going to save me. And so when my dad lost everything, I realized from a very early age that I had to create my own stability. So I got this job and I loved writing about my job. My first job was at a restaurant. I was a bus girl. I cleaned tables. I cleaned urinals. I cleaned bathrooms. I was a dishwasher. I loved that job because it was my first real taste of independence. Like I could work hard. And the harder I worked, the more security I had so that nobody was going to take everything I had. You know, and so while my dad was falling apart and struggling and battling all sorts of demons, I realized from an early age that I could rescue me.

9:27And so that's where my real first love started to develop for wrestling because I realized looking down at that ring from that window in the room that my mom and my sisters and I were sharing, there was something down there that was going to save me. Wow, Maddie, I'm picturing you at that age. Gosh darn it, you got me right there. I think one of the reasons I connected with you, I wish everybody knew this about you. She has every reason in the world at this point in her life to have a really big ego. I mean, she's a legend in a legendary business. And she's one of the most sweet and kind and humble people you will ever meet.

10:06And yet she's strong. It's not a weak kindness. It's a strength in kindness that Natty has. And I think the reason that I connected with you is I think I want to talk about family trauma a little bit. because most people listen to this, they come from some dysfunction in their family, right? Our dads remind me of each other a little bit in the sense that my dad, when I was growing up, my dad was alcoholic and drug addict and just dysfunctional. Now, my dad, I got the blessing of seeing my dad really change at about 15 when I was about 15. So I got two different dads, literally. But in the book, you talk, I mean, openly, like more than you ever have before about...

10:49Your family and some of the dysfunction in it. So if you would share some of that, because there's no way in 45 minutes that we're going to cover enough things. People need to get the book to hear the whole story. Right. Tell us a little bit about your dad and what do you think that imprinted on you in any way, how it affected you? I dedicate the book to my dad. So when you see who I wrote it, I dedicated it to him. And because he's a very important part of my story, he shaped me. I loved him. He loved me, but he also hurt me. And so it's important for me to share with others because this book could be the, you know, it could be a handbook for somebody else's, you know, survival.

11:29And so many people, it's like when I wrote the book, I was like, that's where I really struggled because I was like, I'm sharing stuff that's so personal and so deep, especially about my dad. And I don't want to betray him by sharing these intimate times that like my dad broke my heart or my dad was struggling with drugs or my dad was struggling with substance abuse or my dad was falling apart or he kept losing his job. Like I kept I kept thinking like, oh, I don't want to look like I'm exploiting my dad or exposing him. But I have to be able to share what we were going through because there's a great part on the other side of that.

12:02There's a lot of hope on the other side of that. So, you know, my dad was living most of his adult life with a brain injury. I didn't know that until after my dad had passed away. The brain injury really stemming from my dad playing football. My dad started playing Pop Warner football when he was 11 years old. And so growing up, my dad would tell these stories about, you know, he would get his bell rung and his coaches were so proud of him, though, because he just kept playing. He just kept going back out on the field. He just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And my dad was so proud of that.

12:33Like, it was like a badge of honor for him. so in his teens he was just you know playing football super hard and over over exerting himself but like he would brag about that well come to find out years and years later it would affect him for the rest of his life because you know he lived his his adult life with a brain injury and so when we were kids and my dad would continuously he would lose his job he probably got fired from wwe i'd say five times um he just couldn't keep a job he he would miss shows and he He had behavioral issues. And when you're a little kid or a teenager, like to me, I didn't we didn't know what was going on.

13:10We just saw that my dad was struggling with substance abuse. So we were just like, why can't he get it together? He just doesn't love us enough. Like, I just thought my dad didn't love me enough. When I found out more of what was going on with my dad, and that's why I wanted to write about it, because he was dealing with so much more. It taught me so much about compassion. You don't always know what somebody else is going through. You don't always know what's behind the scenes. And I realized, man, my dad was doing so much just to keep it together. He was dealing with anxiety and depression and all of this other stuff.

13:43And back in the 80s with these big athletes, like my dad, he's a 300-pound man. He's a barrel-chested, strong guy that played in the NFL. He wrestled in WWE. When my dad was 18 years old, he was the number one shot putter in the United States. he was just a world-class athlete but he was dealing with so much more underneath all of that but again like to be able to talk about this and to say like yeah it wasn't because my dad didn't love me he was dealing with something so much deeper you know he he broke my heart I broke his heart I I just I love being able to share that in the book because so many people are going through you know a lot of people are caretakers for their parents and people don't know about that like I was trying to succeed in WWE I was trying to make my mark and leave you know do what I love in that company while dealing with this private battle with my parent that was my dad was dying for a long time and I couldn't share it with anybody instead I would just open up Twitter and see oh like my dad was arrested this afternoon and then I would have to deal with that and I'd have to go to work and be like I don't like and I love being able to share that in the book like that was hard too like going to work and me being in wwe and then having to explain like what's going on at home if news broke that something happened with my dad which it constantly was you know but now it's like i think the book also paints my dad in a very sympathetic light because i i really forgave him after he passed away and we were able to unlock a lot of what was going on and to be able to speak with specialists and be able to understand that you know those early years of trauma i'm playing football with no helmet and getting, you know, like, I don't want to get too into it, but because we only have 45 minutes, but I understand everything more now.

15:25And I realized that my dad was just doing the best that he knew how to do and deal with at that time. So it helped me, it helped me to write about it. I think you really ought to. So, Hey guys, you know, when I started this podcast, there was all this stuff I had to do. I had to shoot stuff. I had to post it. And when you're doing something new, it feels like the to-do list continues to expand over and over and over again. So what you need to do is to find a tool that simplifies everything. And that's why I love Shopify. Shopify is the commerce tool that helps you simplify and organize all the things you're doing online.

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17:13That's im8health.com slash ed and use code ed for a free welcome kit. Five free travel satchels plus 10 % off your order. im8health.com slash ed, code ed. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. By the way, I struggle with the exact same thing with my dad when I sell some of these personal stories. I don't want to demean my dad or I'm in the wrong light. It's really, when you're a public person, it's difficult to navigate between wanting to be transparent and authentic and vulnerable and tell the truth, at the same time, protect.

17:51But what you did in this book that I hope I've done a little bit, like, because you were so honest, it's going to help far more people. You didn't sugarcoat it. It wasn't washed under the rug, so to speak, or swept under the rug. I wanted to ask you a little bit about, I think of you, I think of a lot of things that you went through in order to be successful. And you guys, you just need to know this. Other wrestlers that I know over the years, when I ask who's the best, I'm talking about skilled at her craft. Most of the women and many of the men, if they end up naming a woman, it's Natty. just so you know i'm talking about like skilled at her craft she's known as like great at what she does and there's a lesson to that because you know i want to figure out how the heck you become you because it was dysfunctional and it's great you know one of the lessons that you have in the book that i just want to say back to you is like a lot of times it's not the event of our lives it's the story we tell ourselves about it it's how we frame it and what you did is right But you've reframed your dad's dysfunction in a way that is more beautiful, that does serve you, happens to be true.

19:03But a lot of people are listening. You may not be able to do that. It's going to have to be, what's it? It's not the event. It's what's it mean? And when you take the wrong meaning or a meaning that doesn't serve you, it can ruin your life. It can hold you back forever. I think you're successful. I'm going to tell you why. Okay. Number one, I think you're great at what you do. And I don't think there's any substitute. if you want to be, look, all this self-help stuff that we all talk about is great. At the end of the day, you have to be the world's competitive. There's levels to everything. You got to get good.

19:32If you're a realtor, listen to this, you got to be really great. Good does not pay the bills anymore. Right. If you're in sales, you got to be exemplary. If you're a mom, you got to be amazing. So talk about the hard work that went into this. And then this other thing you said in either the book or an interview I saw, like, well, why not me? Right. I mean, oh, you're so, and you're like this is like a dream interview because you're talking about all the things that are speaking to my heart and speaking to my heart as I wrote the book because again we go back to my family being so big and like there's so much meat on the bone and with with all everything I was really trying to figure out like you said how do I frame the story and how can I make this I really really wanted the book the biggest takeaway from the book that I wanted people to get from it is I wanted them to heal I wanted them to read it and then at the end of it feel like wow this healed something in me.

20:21Like they could see a reflection of themselves in the book and they could go, wow, this like, this made sense to me. A lot of people are reading it and like really sitting on it. They're like, I have to take a moment after I'm done reading it to like really process it because, you know, now with my career at WWE in January, it'll be 19 years of working there uninterrupted. And so when I started my career, I was trying to get hired by WWE. So I kept on chasing all these things that I thought were going to make me happy. It's like, I just got to get hired. I just got to get to developmental. I just got to get my foot in the door.

20:54I've just got to like, you know, I got hired by WWE. Like, you know, when you get, when you first get started there, you're not even sure. It's like, I was making about the same as I was as a waitress, you know, because they just went in those farm leagues in developmental. They just want to see like, it's just your baby step into the company. And then you got to get it out, get out of there. And then you got to like get to the next level. So it was like, I just got to get hired. Then it was I'm hired, but I just have to get to the main roster. Then you get to the main roster and you're like, oh, I'm here now.

21:24But like, how do I get to the next level? And so for almost two decades, I kept chasing and chasing and chasing. Like, I just got to get the storyline and I just have to get this contract that I want. I just I just have to get this, you know, championship. And I just want to be on this pay-per-view. And I just and I realized by the time I got to the end of the book, I was like, holy shit i i won yeah i can i kept chasing and chasing and chasing all of these things that i thought were going to make me happy and then every time i got that i realized like that is not when people read this book i want them to redefine the way that they look at success in their lives because i i finally got to wwe did all these incredible things and i kept on telling myself Like, I don't like I don't deserve it.

22:10I don't belong here. I'm not good enough. Like I kept looking around and seeing comparing myself and psychologically letting so many little things get in my head. Because, again, this day and age, too, with public with with social media and like you there's a lot of noise. So there were moments in the book where I had so much self-doubt, where I was like imposter syndrome, where I was like, why would they want me to be the champion? Why would anybody even want to watch me wrestle? Like there was a lot of that that I dealt with. And then when I got to the end of the book and I finally was being presented with this championship, TJ, my husband said to me, he goes, I said, I can't believe that they want me to win this title tonight.

22:45And he goes, why not you? He goes, why can't you do everything? He's like, why can't you do everything that you want to do, Natty? He's like, haven't you paid your dues? Haven't you helped everybody? Haven't you built all these bridges for other women to succeed? He goes, why not you? And so I want people to read the book and look at themselves and go, why not me? like why can't i open a restaurant and you know be a whatever dreams you have why not you that's so good this is exactly how i kind of hope this was gonna go today um i'm gonna ask you something i don't think you're gonna get asked a lot and i'm just curious about it you're in a very everyone just listen to her answer because i'm going to be fascinated by it you're in a very competitive business yes you guys there's just a handful of people that last even a decade in this sport and it's competitive and who's going to get the belt and who's going to hand it over and all this other stuff and the behind the scenes, the backstage, all of it.

23:42And then, by the way, I screwed up every time I talked to him. I don't know who's the uncle, who's the cousin, which side's mom's side. Even in the intro, I probably called him an uncle. It's like, there's so many family members of hers that are in the sport. Just call it her family. I don't know if it's an uncle or whatever. Okay. But I know, I know about her dad for sure. But you know, you've come out of this on the other side and I think it's safe to say I mean I know Steph and you know other people behind the scenes at WWE over the years they love you meaning you're also very well liked and I don't know that you just do this because you're just a kind person but your people skills I think have something to do with your longevity because there's other skilled wrestlers that just didn't get along in the locker room right like I think of I've had the Undertaker I think it's one of his skills like other wrestlers liked him personally as far as I know also what about that part of like how you treat people how you see people do you think some of that was shaped because you've always been a little bit self-conscious yourself so you're always thinking what other people are thinking like what's the key to your skill with people I know it's not even asked it's not the book but I'm curious that's it's it's funny because the industry, not just professional wrestling, but like in you, you get so much further in life on grease than gravel.

24:57And my grandfather actually, my grandfather, Sue Hart taught me that he goes, you get, you just get so much further when, when, when you're kind and you do things with integrity and you do things with love and you do things with compassion. And for me, I think I'm naturally an empath. I think that almost sometimes I maybe feel too much because growing up, like I, I feel like you know and I was able to really explore that in the book but like because I saw the stuff that my dad went through and I because we went you know we struggled so much and we we lost everything we gained everything we lost everything we gained everything we lost people we gained people like I was always kind of seeing the rug get pulled out from under us so I had an extraordinary amount of empathy for people like especially even my in my first years in WWE like I started out as a wrestler in a time where women's wrestling wasn't really popular.

25:48And I was working with a lot of the other women that were getting hired. They were dancers. They were cheerleaders. They were models. And one thing that I noticed, especially in my very early stages in WWE, was that we were all just trying to make it. And there was this common bond of like, my journey was so different than like, let's just say the Bella Twins, you know, like my journey is so different than Ric Flair's daughter. My journey is different than Stephanie McMahon's. But at the end of the day, we all just want to do great. We want to make it. We want to we're all in this thing together.

26:18And so one of the things that I I really focused on when I was first getting started was I because I didn't believe in myself the way that I needed to. I was like, if I can help everybody reach their dreams, I will always have a seat at the table. You know, if I can be I don't I might not be what Vince McMahon thinks is the star, but I can be the star maker. and so I went through so many years of my WWE career being like listen you're just so lucky to be here you've got a seat at the table and you got to help everyone else and by the like we said by the time I got to the very end my husband said to me he goes Nani you deserve to be a champion he's like you are a star and you've paid your dues and you've earned this but it didn't come with like to me like treating everybody with respect treating everybody how I wanted to be treated because I work with some of the most like extraordinary people in the world John Cena is one of them.

27:09And let me, let me give you a little quick little story about John Cena. And this is going to not shock you, but you're going to like the story. So my husband and I have a place that we train people. We train them for free. It's private kind of invite only. It's called the dungeon. And it's where we volunteer. We volunteer 52 weeks a year to help other wrestlers learn their, tighten up their craft. So last week, John Cena reaches out to me and he says, Hey, he goes, can I come to the dungeon? And I was like, sure. Like I would love that. I was like, anything you need john i was like if you need a key and you want to come train privately because i know he's you know preparing for his final matches in wwe and so he goes no i don't want to train privately he goes i want to come to your class and i want to watch what you do and i want to i want to give back wow and he goes please tell me the night and i'll book it off he goes i will clear my full schedule to come to the dungeon so so he he reaches out to me this morning because he's coming tonight and he says hey natty it's by the way it's 7 55 a.m and he goes hey natty i just want to double check that we're still still on for tonight i'm so excited about it i'm so grateful for this opportunity that you're going to let me come to the dungeon oh my gosh yeah and so i'm like this is john cena he's the biggest you know one of the biggest stars in the world and he is telling me that he is so grateful for the opportunity to come to our warehouse in the middle of nowhere with no air conditioning to help young aspiring wrestlers that is some that sentence that at the very end he said i'm so grateful for this opportunity like to me like that's why john cena is where he is at because he's never stopped being grateful yeah and by the way one of the reasons you're where you're at is that when i ask a question about you you choose to speak about somebody else and so it's all why you're where you're at And by the way, John, that's incredible.

29:02And I admire that. And I think of you, I think of gratitude. I also think of you. Yes. Natty's always, there's two types of people in life. There's the type of person, when they walk in a room, they say, here I am. And they're the star of the show in their own mind. And then there's very special people that walk in a room and they say, there you are. And in Natty's case, she has every reason in the world to walk in and go, here I am. And she doesn't. She walks into the room and says, there you are. She makes other people feel special. The other thing that you have a model of the world, I just want to give this back to you so that you know that you have this and just point it out, is that you've never believed that if someone else succeeded, it meant you couldn't.