Natalya's Road to WWE Stardom: Chronicling the Hart Dungeon Diva's Journey

Never coasting thanks to her famous family name, Natalya Neidhart has marked her career with hard work, as she drove herself to master her craft and create her own legacy.

Today, she is one of the most respected women's wrestlers in WWE, even if the company she works for hasn't always recognized her talents.

Natalya's entrance into the world of wrestling was not surprising. The industry runs in her blood. She did everything from weightlifting to gymnastics, but wrestling was her destiny.

Her father, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, was a popular tag team wrestler in the late 1980s and early '90s. Her uncle, WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart, is known as one of the greatest in-ring technicians of all time. And Natalya's grandfather, Stu Hart, made wrestlers-in-training squeal in the Hart family basement.

That ramshackle training area, known as the Hart Family Dungeon, has seen names like Chris Jericho and Davey Boy Smith emerge from it and go on to hugely successful careers.

Natalya learned the ropes of wrestling in the dungeon—the first woman to do so. It was a rugged environment.

She told TJ Madigan in a 2003 interview with Slam! Sports, "The Dungeon is a dangerous place to take bumps. There's pieces of padding missing all over the place and parts of the floor are exposed. You have to be careful but I think that's all part of the allure."

Bearing the grueling training that went on in the Hart house surely helped Natalya gain toughness that would benefit her for years to come. A punishing industry awaited her.

Young, Hungry Vagabond

Natalya kicked off her career as host of the teenage-centered Mat Rats promotion in 2000. The Calgary-based company featured only grapplers under 21 and tried to merge the energy of music videos with wrestling.

In a few years, the company folded.

Natalya moved on to Stampede Wrestling, the company her grandfather had run for years. She and fellow Canadian Belle Lovitz squared off several times, clashing in several cities in Alberta.

She soon began to fill her passport with stamps as she wrestled in England, New York and Japan.

Awesome Kong, who would later compete in WWE as Kharma, was among the women she battled in The Land of the Rising Sun. Natalya was not yet as crisp a performer as she could become, but her talent was obvious. She was a stellar technician and a natural in the ring.

Competing against such talented opponents helped Natalya grow. Reflecting on her time in Japan, Natalya told Scotty Bender of Wrestlevision, "I never knew women would move like that, could work like that."

Along the way, she suffered an injury that slowed her momentum, tearing her ACL in late 2005. Surgery followed.

She was back in the ring by the next summer, the time on the shelf actually having a positive impact.

In a Slam! Wrestling interview with Corey David Lacroix, Natalya said, "I have clarity about my work in the ring that was missing before. It sounds crazy, but this ACL injury may have been one of the best things to happen to me, because it has made me a better person and helped me to see that in life, you can never give up."

Independent promotions like Great Canadian Wrestling and the Prairie Wrestling Association booked her as she continued to build her name in Canada.

Wrestling for Shimmer Women Athletes, though, most helped her create buzz. The promotion was famous for pitting the best female talent against each other, so Natalya was assured a quality foil. In October of 2006, she took on Sara Del Rey in a fantastic match.

Anthony Beckingham of PWTorch.com wrote of it, "The quality you'd expect from two of female wrestling's greatest, as not one moment felt unused."

Not surprisingly, WWE soon signed her. Her family lineage would have been enough to get her a look, but she was clearly an artist the company needed to showcase.

Developing an Identity 

More traveling, more transition was afoot. Natalya signed a WWE deal in 2007 and was soon moving from developmental territory to developmental territory.

She worked with Deep South Wrestling in Georgia and Kentucky's Ohio Valley Wrestling. The grappler also wrestled for Florida Championship Wrestling long before it transitioned into NXT.

At that point, she hadn't reached her full potential as a performer, but she was miles better than many of those standing opposite her. The women's division on these developmental rosters featured several models-turned-wrestlers.

Along the way, Natalya had to strike a balance. Using her family name made sense, but it couldn't be all that defined her.

She used the Sharpshooter, a move her uncle Bret made famous. She entered the ring to a remix of The Hitman's old theme music. WWE paired her with David Hart Smith (Davey Boy Smith's son) and Teddy Hart (Stu Hart's grandson), dubbing them "The New Generation Hart Foundation."

This was an easy entry point into the WWE world, but one that carried a shadow with it.

That Hart Family shadow followed her to the main roster. Early in her run on SmackDown, she began to manage Smith and Tyson Kidd (whom she eventually married), forming The Hart Dynasty. And when her uncle Bret battled Vince McMahon at WrestleMania XXVI, Natalya was right there on the sidelines cheering him on.

But her top-notch ring skills allowed her to stand out, to become more than just another member of the Hart Family. Not that WWE has always put those skills to use.

Perennially Underrated 

When Natalya is done wrestling, WWE will surely point to her Divas Championship win at Survivor Series 2010 and her great match against Charlotte at NXT TakeOver as career peaks.

The company likely won't remind us, though, how often it squandered Natalya.

Beth Phoenix and Natalya formed The Divas of Doom in 2011. The alliance looked extremely promising but fizzled out. Feuding with Kelly Kelly didn't help, and neither did not making the duo a higher priority.

In one of the oddest decisions WWE has ever made, it crafted a storyline where Natalya had trouble with flatulence. She would be working out or wrestling, and she would let one loose. It was a dumbfounding direction to take with a top performer.

Former WWE wrestler Maria Kanellis commented on the storyline in an interview with Running the Ropes (h/t ProWrestling.net). She said, "It's disrespectful to her, disrespectful to her family, and I cannot even believe that they went there. I think it really says something to how WWE feels about their women's division."

More goofiness came next. WWE had Natalya play Great Khali's dancing love interest. It put her in comedy skits and asked her and Kidd to go nuts over Burger King.

The company also chose to play up marriage issues between her and Kidd that fans had seen on Total Divas.

There have too frequently been stretches where she didn't appear on TV. There have been too few big-time feuds for her to thrive in.

That's partly why her recent climb into contention has been so refreshing. Having her collide with Charlotte has allowed her to be a prominent part of the division and to produce quality work between the ropes.

More of that is to come as Natalya is set to face Charlotte for the belt again at Payback on Sunday.

Her fans have to hope that this recent rise isn't a blip. Perhaps instead, WWE will have Natalya be involved with more championships than comedy and allow her to display the skills she learned in the Hart Dungeon, Japan and in front of sparse crowds back home.