Natalya comments on her future in wrestling after signing a new WWE contract in 2024

In July of 2024, it was reported that Natalya signed an extension with WWE shortly before her previous contract expired. While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Natalya discussed her future with the company…

“Here’s the thing, even right now in WWE we look at the Women’s Division, it’s never, ever been this competitive, ever. Across NXT, Raw, or SmackDown it’s never, ever been like this. The girls that we have across the board are incredible. I look at the NXT Women’s roster and I’m like they’re amazing. There’s so many women there that I want to work with. I look at the Raw women’s roster, everybody is so good. I look at the SmackDown Women’s roster, everybody is very, very talented. So you have all this stuff to choose for all these different styles and different, as we say, flavors of ice cream to choose from with every girl bringing something unique to the table. So for me, because I have been here for so long, I understand that like even for me, I don’t like everybody. Not everybody has to like everybody. Not everybody has to like me. When I signed my new deal with WWE, I signed it last June and I thought to myself as long as I continue to stay in WWE I have to always remember to keep proving myself. I can’t just rest on the fact that I have a world record for the most matches, or the most wins, or the most this, or the most that or that I had a really great match with Charlotte at TakeOver. To me, when you continue to work in WWE, you always have to keep proving yourself no matter what it is that you’re doing, even if you’re not working at WWE.

So I kind of made that vow to myself that if I want to continue working here, I have to not only prove myself and not only fight to be in this division, but also fight to prove my detractors wrong. So that’s why I thought about myself wrestling elsewhere. I thought, Hmm, I wonder what it would be like. I wonder what it would look like for me to wrestle elsewhere, and I want to wrestle everywhere. That’s the thing, I want to wrestle everywhere. That’s what I love about my ring. My ring is really kind of like a forbidden door. The dungeon that TJ and I have. I love all these different people coming in and just bringing passion, whether it’s Joe Hendry, whether it’s Kevin Knight, whether it’s DeReiss, whether it’s Riho, B-Fab comes in, Dawkins, Apollo, all these different people come to our ring, whether they’re on the independents, they come from all these different places and that’s what I want to do. I want to wrestle everywhere. I love that WWE is starting to do that, and actually in the coming weeks, because of how I feel about this and the need to continue to prove myself in the division and fight to be in the division and fight to have my spot in the division. Because, honestly, just because I’ve done a bunch of stuff here doesn’t mean I [should be on TV], wrestling owes nobody anything. WWE doesn’t owe me anything. So for me, it’s always about proving myself with everything that I do, every practice that I run at the dungeon, every match that I have in WWE, it’s all about proving myself. And so in the coming weeks there’s going to be some announcements made. WWE and myself, we’re going to be addressing some very, very exciting things coming up. Because, yeah, I want to wrestle. I really want to wrestle everywhere.” (quote courtesy of ChrisVanVliet.com)