Tamina and Natalya have discussed how their partnership came to be and who had the forethought to put the two generational wrestlers together as a tandem.
Natalya and Tamina had a mixed WrestleMania 37 weekend in April 2021. On WrestleMania Saturday they outlasted four other teams to win a WWE Women’s Tag Team Title shot the very next night. On that occasion, they were unsuccessful as they fell to defeat at the hands of champions Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax.
The story for Tamina and Natalya was far from over however as they continued their hunt for tag team gold. On the 14th of May episode of SmackDown the two women finally conquered Baszler and Jax and claimed the championship for themselves.
Speaking to Renee Paquette on her Oral Sessions podcast, the two women discussed how their team came to be.
Tamina began:
“TJ [Wilson, WWE agent and Natalya’s husband] had said it would be cool if you and Nattie teamed up and became a tag team. I was like brother TJ that would be amazing thank you.”
Natalya continued, revealing that it was a nixed singles feud for her that gave her the drive to go into this team:
“I was supposed to go into a big rivalry with Sasha Banks earlier this year. But everything changed when Bianca won the Royal Rumble. I was so excited about wrestling Sasha, she is one of, if not the greatest women’s wrestlers in the world. I was so excited about it. TJ said ‘You and Tamina should be a tag team, you would be perfect together.’ He pulls up this picture of our family history. He’s like look at all the work both your families have done, you should pitch it [the tag team].”
“I was like Oh my God, I was going from sad to not working with Sasha and having this fire of wanting to work with her, to having this new fire of wanting to work with [Tamina]. I went to Tamina and I was like I’m going to pitch this and we were off to the races. Whenever I have pitched anything to Vince, he has always given me a chance and always heard me out.”
Natalya then added that Vince McMahon had told her that because she went to him, he gave her the chance to run with the idea just like he had several years ago:
“The Hart Dynasty was never supposed to be. I went to Vince in Nashville and I have an idea. He goes ‘Nattie because you came to me, I’m going to give you a chance.’ It was the same thing with me and Tamina. We hit a home run with every segment. It was so fun to transform Tamina from someone who was unselfish and in the shadows and I was like let’s do something different. We changed her gear and changed her look. As we were doing that, the powers that be could feel the energy and the enthusiasm. They saw that and here we are.”
Tamina also revealed what was said between her and Nia Jax during the decisive pinfall that saw the WWE Women’s Tag Team Title change hands.