Tyson Kidd On How He Got Together With Natalya, Working Backstage With WWE RAW Women's Division
As noted, WWE producer Tyson Kidd recently spoke with SLAM! Wrestling for a lengthy interview at this link. You can read our write-up on what Kidd said about his career-ending neck injury, Samoa Joe, and Vince McMahon offering him his new WWE job by clicking here. Below are more highlights:
His Workhorse Fitness brand and the products they sell, which have received positive reviews from users:
"He [the same friend who made a friendly fitness challenge to him in 2017 that led to Kidd turning his life around & coming out of depression following the career-ending neck injury] had been contacted by a couple of fitness people for me to either get paid or give me some supplements in exchange for some social media stuff. He looked into it and said, 'Hey, what if you were to start your own? And right away I said no.'
"(The product manufacturers) had different tiers of quality and I said, 'Okay, if we do this, it's got to all be top quality. I'm not putting out anything that's not top quality.' It's been really awesome so far. It's done really well. We are working on protein right now. We now have a couple different flavours of the of the BCAAs and the preworkout. And we have the fat burner, Melting Pot, which is awesome. It's been a lot of fun."
The first time he met wife Natalya, how she picked up on his adoration for her before turning heel on him, and how Teddy Hart later played a role in winning her over:
"The first time I met Nattie, I remember it was at Stu's and we were downstairs in one of the rooms. I was shy. I knew I liked her right away. I remember her telling me off sometime like, 'Well, I know I'm pretty, I don't need you tell me!' And I was like, 'What is she talking about? I didn't say anything.' OK. I was like, 'All right, we'll see, we'll see.' It was definitely on."
"The show Mat Rats was coming around and somehow Teddy Hart, again, usually the influencer, convinced Nattie to be a part of the show [as a ring announcer]. Then Ted said, 'What about a ring announcer who does a couple of high spots? What about a ring announcer who can do a Dragonrana or the Sliced Bread, if she could do these moves?' Nattie was like, 'I'd love to learn these moves.' [Hart then suggested Natalya wrestle Kidd] It's so weird. Our relationship is very unorthodox and it just kind of came together literally through wrestling moves."
"What happened was, of course I had a crush on her, we were wrestling and doing moves together whenever she was there. We had this beautiful studio, we had this ring set up and we had full access to it. I went and did this four-day Stampede tour in way northern Alberta, like Grand Prairie, like six hours from Calgary — crazy drive. [Natalya thought she was skilled enough to do moves with anyone, not just Kidd while he was away] She came in and was trying these same moves with (some of the students). We mostly trained kids from 14 to like 20. We had so many people. So Nattie, I think, tried a couple of moves with these guys and I think they didn't go as well as she had thought they were going to go. But I think, in some weird way that's what (triggered it). She was trying to fight it, and that's what kind of clicked in her head that she liked me, more than just the wrestling dummy. I think after that little wrestling experiment where her ego came crashing back down to Earth, something clicked that she decided to stop fighting that she actually did like me."
Working behind-the-scenes with the female Superstars in the RAW women's division:
"We gel well. I get where they're coming from. It's really cool because there have been a few of them that I've literally seen it click right there while we're talking. I've seen it click for them and then they're off to the races. They don't really need me after that. I trained Nattie how to wrestle and I helped her with a million matches so I understand how to kind of work with the women, maybe not to the degree of Fit (Finlay) because he's been doing it forever and he molded that entire division from scratch basically. But I think I'm not a bad apprentice."
Source: SLAM! Wrestling