Natalya Championship

Image credits - WWE.Com

Natalya is a Canadian-born professional wrestler, best known for her work in her current promotion, WWE. She is a third-generation professional wrestler, the daughter of Jim Neidhart, a member of the Hart Foundation, and a WWE Hall of Famer.

Her real name is Natalie Katherine Neidhart-Wilson and her father was a tag team member of Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart. She is a member of the Hart Family from her mother. The tag team of her father and The Hitman was a major hit among pro-wrestling fans during the 1980s and 90s. Besides her connection with a prolific wrestling family, Natalya, herself is a decorated professional wrestler. Perhaps the most successful female from The Hart Family, Natalya has won many accolades during her time with the promotion.

How many titles has Natalya won in WWE?

Natalya has won three championships in WWE - the Divas Title, The SmackDown Women’s title and the WWE Women’s tag team title, all once.

WWE Divas Champion (2010-2011) - 70 Days

Natalya began her singles career in September of 2010 and won a battle royal to become the contender for the WWE Divas Championship. She had to then face Lay-Cool (Michelle McCool and Layla) who had announced themselves the co-champion for the title. After weeks of back-and-forth matches, Natalya defeated the two superstars at Survivor Series in a handicap match to become the new champion.

While being the champion, she also allied with Beth Phoenix. Natalya was then booked to defend her title in a handicap match at Royal Rumble until Eve Torres was added in the mix, making it a fatal-4-way match. At the event, Torres pinned Layla to become the new champion, ending Natalya’s title reign at 70 days.

WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion (2017) - 86 Days

When the WWE draft was re-introduced in 2016, Natalya was drafted to SmackDown Live. In July 2017, at WWE Battleground, she defeated Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Tamina and Lana in a Five-Way match to become the number one contender for Naomi’s SmackDown Women’s Championship.

At SummerSlam, she defeated Naomi to win her first title in over six years. This also made her the first superstar to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship and the Divas Championship. She defended her title against Naomi and Charlotte Flair before losing it to Flair in November after 86 days.

WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion (w/ Tamina - 2021) - 129 Days

In January 2021, Natalya started teaming up with fellow generation-wrestler Tamina. At WrestleMania 37 Night One, she and Tamina won a tag team turmoil match earning themselves a tag title opportunity for the next night. At WrestleMania 37 Night Two, they failed to beat Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax.

However, just a few weeks later, they defeated the champion to win the titles for the first time. They held the title for 129 days before dropping them to Nikki A.S.H. and Rhea Ripley on the September 20 episode of Monday Night RAW.

Natalya Professional Wrestling Career

She made her pro-wrestling debut in the early 2000s in Stampede Wrestling, the promotion owned and operated by her family. Stampede was formed by the family patriarch Stu Hart in 1948 and was run by the Hart Family up until its closure in 2008. Natalya worked for Stampede Wrestling for about four years before being signed by WWE in 2007.

The Iron Woman of WWE has since been associated with the promotion and witnessed its ups and downs. She began her career on the roster of Deep South Wrestling, a developmental roster, and soon made her debut on the main roster as a member of The Hart Dynasty. After a time with Tyson Kidd and David Hart Smith, Natalya ventured out as a singles wrestler and won the Divas Championship in 2010.

Following her title reign, she would go on to create a tag team with Beth Phoenix named the Divas of Doom. From 2012, Natalya started featuring in WWE’s Total Divas show and also made appearances on its new developmental territory NXT. From around 2014, Natalya acted as the manager of Tyson Kidd and Cesaro.

Since then, Natalya has been one of the major stars in the WWE Women’s Revolution. In this period, The Iron Woman of WWE has won the SmackDown Women’s Championship and the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship once.