{"id":92859,"date":"2021-06-01T13:00:34","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T17:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=92859"},"modified":"2021-05-31T17:37:39","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T21:37:39","slug":"natalya-tamina-making-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/06\/01\/natalya-tamina-making-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Natalya and Tamina: Making History, Shaping the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Current WWE women\u2019s tag team champions <strong>Natalya<\/strong> and <strong>Tamina <\/strong>are both bearing the standard of famous families whose performers have contributed immeasurably to the WWE and sports entertainment in general. However, what makes their current run as champions impactful is not their past, but what it could mean for the future of women in the pro wrestling industry. The fact that the two, who are long past the age at which female athletes in pro wrestling were encouraged to retire, are front and center as celebrated champions could suggest a shift in an often <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2020\/07\/14\/ageism-women-wwe\/\" target=\"_self\">ageist industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This past week, well-wishes poured in on social media from colleagues and fans for Natalya\u2019s thirty-ninth birthday. A fan-favorite and beloved in the WWE women\u2019s locker room, Natalya\u2019s pro wrestling journey began close to home: training with her uncles <strong>Ross<\/strong> and <strong>Bruce Hart<\/strong> at Hart House, in the storied \u201cDungeon\u201d where Hart family patriarch Stu trained wrestlers for decades. She wrestled for the family\u2019s storied Canadian promotion <strong>Stampede Wrestling<\/strong> before moving on to the indies, and then the WWE as a Diva. Although she captured the Divas Championship, her days as a Diva were marred by the gimmicky stunts that plagued the division for its entire existence. In Natalya\u2019s case, that included a running gag about chronic flatulence. However, she was also a participant in the restructuring of the division, taking part in the first all-women\u2019s pay-per-view <em>Evolution<\/em> in 2018. The Divas were defunct, and the women\u2019s division hit the ground running led by fresh faces <strong>Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks, <\/strong>and <strong>Bayley. <\/strong>Despite being somewhat overshadowed, Natalya can still claim to be one of the only women to have held both the SmackDown women\u2019s championship and Divas championship.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Go behind the scenes with Natalya &amp; Tamina for their epic WWE Women\u2019s Tag Team Championship victory\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z9eVph_CV8g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Her partner, Tamina at 43 is the oldest female athlete in the division. Her road to pro wrestling began in 2009, and like Natalya\u2019s was steeped in family and tradition, training at <strong>Afa Amituana\u2019i Anoa\u2019i\u2019s <\/strong>Wild Samoans Training Center. She debuted in WWE a year later, and has faced a slow climb in the company ever since. Tamina\u2019s only championship before the current tag title run was a spell as 24\/7 champion.<\/p>\n<p>Tamina and Natalya\u2019s tag team championship could be regarded as hard work and talent finally getting its just due, as the women have survived the gimmick plagued Diva days, and the rapid ascent of younger colleagues with less experience at WWE, to get where they are now.<\/p>\n<p>Their reign comes at a time when the WWE has faced outrage and criticism over the treatment and release of former fellow Diva <strong>Mickie James<\/strong>. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/03\/15\/mickie-james-women-ageism-pro-wrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">James has sighted numerous slights<\/a> at the WWE before her official release in April-that she was lumped in with retired performers on <em>Raw\u2019s<\/em> Legends night while still technically on the active roster, that she was taken out of serious women\u2019s title contention in her 30s while male performers held championships into their 50s, that she was encouraged to retire and become an agent repeatedly. When her release finally came in earnest, James shared via social media a picture of her remaining belongings on company premises being delivered to her unceremoniously in a plastic garbage bag. The picture not only went viral, but outrage accompanied the implication that James had been treated much like her belongings by a company that branded her obsolete in her early 40s. Although <strong>Renee Paquette <\/strong>and <strong>Chelsea Green <\/strong>shared stories of similar experiences, and grounded the practice more in terms of negligence and insensitivity than an intended insult to James, the impressions of sexism and ageism reverberated amongst pro wrestling fans.<\/p>\n<p>The list of male performers who have remained active in the ring well into their fifties is a long one. <em>WCW <\/em>icon <strong>Sting<\/strong> has served mostly a mentor role to macabre daredevil <strong>Darby Allin <\/strong>since joining <em>AEW<\/em>, but his first in-ring action in six years at the pay-per-view <em>Double or Nothing <\/em>on May 30 is receiving great reviews. WWE\u2019s part-timers like <strong>Edge<\/strong> and <strong>Goldberg <\/strong>still face off against current talent like <strong>Roman Reigns <\/strong>and <strong>Drew McIntyre<\/strong> for major championships on highly anticipated, widely watched pay-per-views. However, in quite a stark contrast, several female talents like <strong>Lita, Trish Stratus, <\/strong>and <strong>Beth Phoenix<\/strong> were all retired by their 30s.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_69246\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69246\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-69246 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/05\/AJ-Lee-PipeBombshell-e1590405917222.jpg\" alt=\"AJ Lee\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69246\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AJ Lee Retired Before Turning 30<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Natalya\u2019s and Tamina\u2019s careers have not only continued beyond the age at which others\u2019 were winding down or over, but they are no longer underutilized and overlooked. However long or short their tag title run will be, their presence is a small sliver in the glass ceiling. With the precedent they are currently setting, female athletes in pro wrestling will hopefully have a little more leverage to pitch themselves as performers with staying power, who can be meaningfully utilized and impactfully hold a championship honor at any age. Both women\u2019s lives are inextricable from the history of pro wrestling, and now they are contributing to history, and the future, themselves.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Looking to talk wrestling, pro football, or any number of sports? Head on over to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/boards\/index.php\" target=\"_self\">LWOS Boards<\/a>\u00a0to engage in conversation with fellow fans!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Current WWE women\u2019s tag team champions Natalya and Tamina are both bearing the standard of famous families whose performers have contributed immeasurably to the WWE and sports entertainment in general. However, what makes their current run as champions impactful is not their past, but what it could mean for the future of women in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":91670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,317,4,3,320],"tags":[404,867],"class_list":["post-92859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smackdown","category-women","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","category-wwe-women","tag-natalya","tag-tamina"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}