At the time of year that is, in professional wrestling at least, synonymous with happiness and joy, there remains sadness for Canadian-born World Wrestling Entertainment star Natalya.

For the Calgary native, born Natalie Neidhart into the nation’s famed wrestling Hart family, it has been a difficult year to say the least.

The daughter of legendary Jim (The Anvil) Neidhart has privately been dealing with strife and sadness for some time now.

Last summer, her lifelong mate and fellow wrestler TJ Wilson, a.k.a. Tyson Kidd, suffered a life-threatening neck injury during a match that he miraculously survived (less than 5% of those who suffer the injury live to tell). Behind the scenes, the family was also dealing with icon Bret Hart’s cancer battle, which he revealed publicly for the first time in recent months.

"Thank you very much for asking that question," the gracious women’s star said during a telephone interview to promote her appearance this weekend at WrestleMania 32 in Dallas, Texas.

"It’s truly been the hardest year of my life. The last year, the last 365 days … I’ve never been challenged or tested the way that I’ve been tested, especially with family," she added, her voice cracking.

"My family is everything to me," she continued. "They’re my whole world and as much as I love wrestling … wrestling doesn’t mean to me what my family means to me. Wrestling is second and my family comes first. I don’t know of anybody who loves wrestling as much as I do, but my family is my rock."

Natalya and Wilson met while training in the infamous Hart Dungeon, a family-run wrestling training school that churned out star after star during the patriarch Stu Hart’s life. Tokyo Joe Diago was their primary trainer. Natalya was the first female to ever train in the so-called Dungeon and became wrestling’s first ever female third-generation star. Wilson and Natalya have been together for some 15 years and were married in 2013.

While wrestling Samoa Joe last summer, Wilson suffered a neck injury that is often either fatal or leaves those who suffer it quadriplegic. Miraculously, Wilson not only survived, but also avoided paralysis, though he may never wrestle again.

"You know, my husband TJ … that was a really serious situation," Natalya said with profound sadness. "It really rocked my whole world. This WrestleMania season’s been tough for me because I’m so excited about being a part of WrestleMania, we’ve got this amazing European tour coming up after, but I can’t help but feel a little emotional because I want my husband to be able to share that with me. I want him to be a part of it too."

In fact, after having recently returned to wrestling herself following a lengthy hiatus to help her husband after his injury, Natalya is now realizing how much she’s been hurting inside.

"Just knowing what a year it’s been for him, and just trying to be strong and not letting him see that inside sometimes I’m breaking, it’s really hard."

Add to that the fact that the family had been until recently privately dealing with Bret’s prostate cancer scare and the hurt has been at times unbearable, Natalya said.

"Cancer is no joke," she said. "Bret has been battling cancer a while and it’s been very private in our family. Bret was fighting for his life a few months ago and really none of us knew what was going to happen. It’s been a very, very traumatic year and I’m still kind of trying to pick up the pieces and not really let anybody know how much I have been hurting inside, but every day I do feel like I’m getting stronger."

Strong is practically Natalya’s middle name. She did, after all, come by wrestling honestly. And by training with men at the Dungeon. Physically, Natalya is straight up bad ass, to say the least.

"It’s easy to talk about your passion (but) talk is cheap," she said. "I hear a lot of guys and girls talk about this, that and everything else, about how much they want it, how much they love it, how much they’ve wanted it since they were a small child. But to actually go through the ringer and to go through the Dungeon and to endure that kind of training, where I was only training with men, it made me stronger."

Training alongside men wasn’t her decision, Natalya said.

"I didn’t have a choice. There wasn’t really anyone else to train with. All the men in my family were into wrestling or wrestled," she said. "I learned from my cousin Harry Smith, my husband now, TJ Wilson … my cousin Teddy Hart, my uncles Bruce and Ross Hart, Bret Hart … I learned from them. I got really tough training in the Dungeon. I got a really thick skin and I didn’t really even know it. I had no idea at the time that training in the Dungeon would prepare me for my hardest battle, the WWE, and make me truly unbreakable."

Being a wrestler from Canada is a challenge in and of itself, but being a female wrestler from Canada trying to break into what was a male-dominated business when Natalya broke in was not without its challenges.

"When I first started in WWE, sometimes we would have wrestling matches and then sometimes we would do like a divas’ bikini dance-off, or a divas’ bikini contest or a divas’ fashion show or (a) best body contest, and there were times when I would just kind of internally cringe at doing those," she said, adding that she convinced herself that being the pro that she was, she would do what was asked. "But in my heart, I’ve always (saw it as) wrestling, not just women’s wrestling, but wrestling in general."

"Damn, I mean if you give me a grizzly bear, I’ll wrestle a grizzly bear," she said, only half joking.

Thanks to an influx of talented women into wrestling, and an opportunity courtesy of Triple H, wrestling legend-turned-WWE executive vice-president of talent, live events and creative.

"I think that women right now are in a very special place in the industry," Natalya said. "I believe strongly that Triple H has really helped spearhead the movement, and Stephanie (McMahon) too, but Triple H obviously being head of NXT, he’s really helped to drive and spearhead the movement for women in wrestling."

That movement, Natalya said, has been a long time coming, particularly for her since joining WWE in 2007.

"I came into wrestling at a very unique time when we were just transitioning over from the Attitude Era to a more PG era. My entire career, and this is something that I don’t talk about with journalists, my entire career in WWE up until about maybe the last year or so, I’ve struggled to find my place because I’ve always been about wrestling, the part of me that I feel is my strongest asset. Wrestling just embodies who I am as far as being a talent in WWE, not just a female."

Being a strong, talented woman wrestler at a time when the focus was on everything but wrestling for women was very challenging, Natalya said.

"It was hard for me when I first came in because we were just coming from the Attitude Era, so I didn’t really fit the mold of being a model. We were kind of going into a PG era where maybe female wrestling wasn’t as embraced. And now, it’s taken me almost eight years to get to the point where I’m in WWE and finally, finally, finally we’re embracing women’s wrestling, which has been my strength the whole time. For me, it’s just so amazing."

Natalya feels very strongly about wrestlers being seen as wrestlers, regardless of gender.

"I don’t discriminate," she said. "I sometimes hear or see the girls putting hashtag women’s wrestling. To me, it’s not even about necessarily women’s wrestling, it’s just wrestling. I encourage the growth of that."

That movement is well underway if the success of the women’s division and the fact that there are two women’s matches planned for WrestleMania are any indication.

"I would like to continue to see equality among the females and the males. I think that’s really been awesome. Two divas matches this year at WrestleMania, it’s huge. There have been a few WrestleManias that I haven’t been a part of and it’s been really hard to sit on the sideline and pretend that you’re happy for everyone else when you’re not included. So the fact that WWE is allowing two divas WrestleMania matches, it’s huge. It’s awesome … I’m grateful for that."

A good start, Natalya said, would be by dropping the title divas and returning to the more politically correct and traditional women’s division, which would include a return of the women’s championship. (Note, rumours surfaced following this interview that WWE will restore the women’s championship following WrestleMania)

"When I hear rumblings of (the return of the women’s championship), I think it would be so cool," Natalya said. I think it’s all about moving forward and evolving, changing with the times. Certainly, the Diva’s championship for me, I was a Diva’s champion, it means (a lot) to me because it represented a certain time in my life, but I also look back to women like Mae Young, who my grandfather revered, and I think about everything that the women’s championship embodied," said referencing her friend and former women’s champ Beth Phoenix. "I know just from being so close to her what the women’s championship meant. So I want the divas in WWE to represent strong women in sports and to represent what we can do in wrestling. This isn’t about men or women. This is about wrestling and passion and drive and embodying that, whether you’re male or female. Hopefully one day we’ll see it."

In the meantime, Natalya remains focused on the task at hand. That task is winning her WrestleMania match as she and the Total Divas, along with Eva Marie take on the squad of B.A.D. & Blonde featuring Lana, Naomi, Tamina, Emma and Summer Rae in front of some 100,000 people. As a member of the Hart family, there nothing more special than WrestleMania.

"Yeah, absolutely. For me, my family, they really are No. 1," she said, recalling a recent match at the famed Madison Square Garden. "At the end of the match, I got what was such a special standing ovation. I literally had tears in my eyes because I thought about WrestleMania 10 with my uncles Bret and Owen in Madison Square Garden and what it meant to them.

"It’s just so special to know that I can share their legacies and that I feel wrestling in my heart and I’m carrying on their tradition and keep Owen’s memory alive and helping to honour my uncle Bret. Going into WrestleMania, this is the biggest WrestleMania in the history of WWE and it’s going to be so special. WWE is pulling out all the stops and when I walk down that ramp in Dallas, I am going to be holding my family’s passion very close to my heart and it’s going to make this WrestleMania all that much more special to me."

jmmurphy@postmedia.com

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