A Deep Dive Into Nattie Neidhart's Evil Motivations

It's amazing that this upcoming April will mark 18 years since Natalya Neidhart debuted on WWE's main roster, doing so on SmackDown. Wrestling is literally in her blood, coming from the prestigious and hallowed Hart family, and overall, Nattie's been displaying her immense talents for over a quarter-century. Her SmackDown debut was a villainous one, and to this day, I still say that her name being stylized to "Natalya" was done to make her more evil and sinister (it's an amazing touch).

It was in 2010 that Natalya captured the Divas Championship, and she would add the SmackDown Women's Championship and the Women's Tag Team Championship to her collection later on. In the time she's been in WWE, Natalya's become a mentor to a lot of the women on the roster, and we saw that played out recently, as she spent the tail end of 2025 training Maxxine Dupri. The training was tough, it was brutal, and it was grueling, but it saw no complaints from Maxxine.

Maxxine went on to capture the Women's Intercontinental Championship from Becky Lynch in November, but the rematch on the first Raw of 2026 (which celebrated one year of Raw on Netflix) saw Becky cheat her way to victory. Maxxine's rematch would happen two weeks later on January 19, but this time, Natalya was with Maxxine, who was certain that her mentor/trainer would have her back.

Yeah, about that:

Maxxine had Becky pinned, but in an absolute shocker (though, I kinda sensed this), Natalya turned heel and placed Becky's foot on the rope to prevent Maxxine from possibly winning. Maxxine was horrified, asking "Why?!," but Natalya simply stood with that cold and evil expression, and watched as her protégé lost. Natalya later went from watching to attacking; delivering an immensely vicious assault to Maxxine that lasted quite a long time.

Similar to Maxxine, we all had the same question: "Why?!" A week later, on the latest edition of Raw, we got that answer:

Why Natalya Betrayed Maxxine Dupri

"Maxxine, I made you," Natalya says, "and you failed. You didn't fail you. You failed me." Very venomous words to start that short segment, but the vicious villainess wasn't done quite yet. "You think that because you rolled with a legend, you can roll like a legend," Natalya adds, "but that will never happen again." Already, I was loving this segment, because Natalya was clearly maniacal in her rant and her motivations. Plus, her killer look is just awesome (more on that later).

From Elevating to Decimating

"This is a whole new me," the evil Natalya proclaims, "and when I'm done with you, Maxxine, I'm coming for it all." It can be assumed that the "all" meant Becky and the Women's IC Title, and after that montage, Natalya crouches in position, and gives her closing line:

"Because Natalya elevates, but Nattie... decimates."

There it is, referring to herself as Nattie. This persona had been teased for a while. In recent months, we've seen Natalya donning that exact gear and hairstyle, while also donning a mouthpiece. The persona is more intense than what we had seen from her in WWE, though I figured that she would simply be less "white meat" as a heroine. As it turned out, this was a sinister side that was slowly emerging, and it all came out on a Monday night in England.

Final Thoughts

Natalya Neidhart has been a villainess many times in WWE, and each time, there have been different facets. She's been an arrogant legacy before, a vicious punisher as one half of the Divas of Doom, a maniacal pursuer of elevation, and a villainous veteran targeting up-and-comers. This, IMO, tops all of them. Natalya's transformation into the evil Nattie Neidhart has to be her best villainous role, as she is maniacal, violent, and insanely intense. She said it herself: it's a whole new her, and it is. There's only one additional thing I wanted in that promo that I wish we got: I wanted an evil laugh from Nattie. A woman's evil laugh is beautiful, and Nattie does have a good one. After her "Nattie decimates" line, I seriously expected Nattie to give an evil cackle that would echo deep into our subconscious.

Even so, this was beautiful! It was short (barely over a minute) but very sweet, and I'm very anxious to see Nattie unleash her deliciously villainous demeanor to whoever crosses her path. I know we should see this as early as Saturday's Royal Rumble event.