Natalya and Bayley take delight in giving again to the professional wrestling enterprise. The WWE stars have grinded for each piece of success they’ve had, which makes them among the many most revered within the locker room. Natalya simply marked her 18th uninterrupted yr working for the corporate. The previous Complete Divas star’s highway has been paved with gold and some Guinness World Information. Bayley’s resume can be spectacular with Ladies’s Championship reigns and Royal Rumble wins.
Regardless of all their accomplishments, they’re all the time keen to impart information to at the moment’s rising expertise. Charlotte Aptitude, Rhea Ripley, Ronda Rousey, Liv Morgan and Lola Vice are just some who’ve spoken extremely of Natalya’s capacity to assist them elevate their sport. One other is Bayley, who most lately started working with younger expertise on NXT. After enjoying within the NBA All Star Celeb Recreation on February 14, she’ll face NXT Ladies’s Champ Giulia and Roxanne Perez at Vengeance Day.
We caught up with Bayley and Natalya on the WWE 2K25 launch to speak concerning the evolution of girls’s wrestling and extra.
Bayley
What do issues like being in a online game like WWE 2K25 imply to you as a lifelong fan?
Bayley: It feels loopy coming into launch events and representing the corporate. Folks enjoying a sport I’m in is fairly loopy. It by no means will get outdated.
WWE
I really like the way you’re utilizing your function to assist others. You labored to assist these affected by the California fires. How is it so that you can become involved like you’ve?
Truthfully, I want I may do extra. Generally I’ll be in a spot the place I attempt to educate myself about what’s occurring so I can help in one of the simplest ways doable. I’m an emotional particular person, so typically it’s very arduous to even take. I attempt to do my half and share what I’m doing so different folks can see how they will help and find out about it. Or simply have the information to see what’s occurring to allow them to know and concentrate on issues which are occurring all over the world.
I do my vacation excursions yearly. Simply being a part of my neighborhood helps me really feel extra full as a result of we will get so trapped within the wrestling world, so I all the time attempt to assist. With what I do right here, I don’t wish to be as egocentric and say, “I’m dwelling my dream with all the things going dangerous.” I attempt to use my platform to help as many individuals as I can together with for all of the Palisades fires. I’m nonetheless donating to completely different locations and donating the place I can.
WWE
You’ve taken an lively function with serving to expertise as effectively. The place is your mindset at this stage of your profession?
I really feel very grateful and assured within the function. I actually really feel it’s one thing I used to be meant to do. Even in my tryout 13 years in the past, there have been 5 ladies who by no means stepped foot in a wrestling ring earlier than. I used to be there to assist them. I informed them they need this from us and that from us. I actually suppose that helped me get my job. So, I’ll by no means flip my again on serving to folks as a result of that’s what bought me right here. The extra I can be taught and expertise, the extra fairness I put in myself and my character, the extra I can provide again. I’m nonetheless elevating the bar myself, however nonetheless with the ability to give again. I really feel grateful to try this. It’s one thing Natalya has been doing for years. So, if I will be like her, I’m good.
Natalya
How is it so that you can see the WWE 2K25 video video games develop and evolve together with what the ladies’s division has turn out to be?
It’s so cool as a result of yearly the sport has increasingly more girls in it. I bear in mind early on in WWE my first time in a online game. I feel it was in 2008. I used to be so excited as a result of not everybody was within the sport. It was a really small group of girls within the sport. So, in the event you had been going to be within the sport, it was such a particular honor. Now we’re seeing a lot extra. Pay attention, the WWE girls’s division is extra stacked than it has ever been. If you have a look at the Uncooked, SmackDown and NXT rosters. Then you definately see what number of girls had been included in that. It’s unprecedented.
Natalya, Nikki Bella, Naomi (Natalya/WWE)
There are additionally so many match sorts. Is there a match sort you haven’t been in that you just wish to do?
I’ve by no means finished Hell in a Cell. I did a cage match in opposition to Charlotte. It wasn’t a Hell in a Cell match. I might completely love a Hell in a Cell match. I feel it might be a lot enjoyable. Perhaps I’d do it in opposition to Charlotte. I’m going to problem her proper now. I’ve additionally all the time had the dream to major occasion WrestleMania. It’s nonetheless one thing I might like to do and take into consideration on a regular basis. I really feel like in the event you’re nonetheless within the sport and a participant and perhaps even not concerned in an enormous storyline. It’s one thing all the ladies in WWE have large desires to be champions and be an enormous a part of WrestleMania. For me, to observe within the footsteps of my household. To consider the matches Bret major evented at WrestleMania. They had been iconic. So I wish to try this.
What do you suppose is the way forward for the ladies’s division and ladies’s wrestling now that it has reached this stage?
I simply wish to see the ladies’s division proceed to develop with extra tales. I feel we’re seeing that. I really like with Uncooked being on Netflix, we’re getting so many extra eyes on us. Not simply the product as an entire, however girls. Eyes on the ladies’s division. I do know it’s a lofty aim, however I might like to see [a balance]. Like if there are 6 or 10 matches on a present, I wish to get to a spot the place it’s 50 % girls.
Just a bit extra ratio for the ladies’s matches, girls’s storylines. I might like to see one other lady common supervisor. I bear in mind when Sonya [Deville] was GM. It’s good to see a lady’s authority determine too. I feel it opens up extra roles for ladies in WWE. I really like Ava because the GM of NXT. NXT for me is my favourite girls’s division I’ve ever been part of. I can’t wait to return to NXT. Ava does an important job operating it. Total, I’d simply like to proceed to see extra girls on the present [across the board].
WWE Uncooked, Mondays, 8/7c, Netflix
WWE NXT, Tuesdays, 8/7c, The CW
WWE SmackDown, Fridays, 8/7c, USA Community
WWE Vengeance Day, February 15, 6/5c, Peacock