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Interview recap w/ Traci Brooks, April Hunter & Nattie Neidhart on WTR |
» Reported by Adam Martin of WrestleView.com
» On Tuesday, October 18, 2005 at 4:09 PM EST
Tim Stein sent in the following recap:
WrestleTalkRadio.com: WTR Sunday Night featuring Traci Brooks, April Hunter and Nattie Neidhart
October 16, 2005; Hosted by Tim Stein, Harmony and Nattie Neidhart in Calgary and JJ Sexay in Oklahoma City
Report by Ian Hamilton
Listen to the full show here.
It was Ladies’ Night this past week on WTR Sunday Night, as Nattie Neidhart effectively took over the show, bringing along TNA’s Traci and April Hunter along for the ride.
Nattie Neidhart and Traci Brooks joined the show after 25 minutes, with Traci opening up by describing what she was eating, and extolling the virtues of peanut butter. Traci then plugged Morphoplex, and talked about her role in TNA as Matt Bentley’s “girlfriend”. She said that her role as a valet helped her learn a lot of stuff about the wrestling business, comparing it to “like watching a tape, except I’m there live”.
Nattie talked about her preparation for a match with Traci, saying that she was pleasantly surprised after wrestling her, before campaigning to see more of Traci wrestling in TNA. Harmony asked about the possibility of TNA doing a women’s division, but Traci said that while they have some good talent, they only have 41 minutes of TV time per week, plus seeing Traci vs Gail Kim every week would only be entertaining for so long.
Nattie chipped in saying that her match with Traci was full of intensity, and that she held nothing back – unlike most female wrestlers in North America. JJ mentioned a match Traci had for (the now defunct) NWA:Universal, as Traci and Nattie continued to share stories, including how Nattie went a little too far in trying to pants Traci during a match.
JJ asked whether Traci preferred taking a bump from a male or female wrestler. Traci said that it depended on the experience of the person who was giving her the bump, and whether they had a rapport with the other person. Nattie backed that up, saying that there some people who she doesn’t trust in the ring. Traci named Daizee Haze as someone who she could work well with, while Nattie reinforced that there’s a difference between being stiff and being hurt, before going onto how she’s learned several styles so she can adapt between the different styles in England, Japan and North America.
Nattie moved onto working in Japan, where her family was more scared of her working there than she was, before talking about some brutal looking moves that were performed safely – such as a double stomp on the floor. She mentioned how wrestling in Japan and England helped her come out of her “shell”, and reveals what was holding her back from working as a heel abroad.
Harmony then asked Nattie what it was like to work with her dad at the PWA show recently in Edmonton. She said that he was “very high maintenance”, and that she was nervous to working as a part of the father/daughter tag team, adapting to Jim’s eighties’ styles. Nattie talked about how the Harts tended to overanalyze their matches, and as a result they were harsh on themselves, even though others were praising their matches.
Nattie and Traci mentioned how Christopher Daniels gave them advice after wrestling on a show in Buffalo, NY, saying that Daniels did that because he cared about their matches.
Harmony went back to TNA, asking Traci about her work with Matt Bentley and Kazarian. Traci said that she was lucky to have worked with them, as the unit felt “natural” and like a family, with it turning out nothing like all the horror stories she’d heard about various other female valets.
Tim asked Traci about Matt Bentley’s name change, and what problems she’d had getting used to it. She said that she’d always called him “Baby”, which was handy as he went through a phase of getting a new name every week as he flipped from Michael Shane, to Michael, to Matthew, then eventually to his real name. Listen to the full show here.
JJ asked another chat-room question, asking whether Traci would take the Canadian Destroyer. She said she almost did on Impact last week, before saying she hopes that she doesn’t – although there’s no moves she doesn’t want to take. Nattie said that she’s afraid to take any bumps to the head, given that Bret Hart ended up retiring through a head injury. They talked about stuff they’d turned down doing in wrestling, before admitting that there was a way to say “no” without hurting their own standing in the locker room.
They moved onto psychology in wrestling, and how dumb moves look – like huracanranas through a table – especially when the one who gives that move eventually ends up losing to something as simple as a clothesline. They then talked about AJ Styles, and how he’s gone from being a “generic flippy floppy” wrestler to one of the best workers in the business today, largely because he’s learned about ring psychology.
Tim continued the discussion about psychology, asking Nattie whether she’d learned the ability to “tell a story” in the ring because of her upbringing. That moved into a debate about realism in wrestling, and how they mostly preferred the likes of Chris Benoit over the Ultimate Warrior.
Traci left the show with a plug for TNA, before thanking the fans for making Impact’s first few weeks on Spike TV a success. Listen to the full show here.
After a short commercial break, WTR returned with April Hunter, who was looking for copies of a match from NWA: Universal, as well as her outing against Nattie at Ballpark Brawl.
Nattie talked about working in Japan, as herself and April mentioned that one of the first words they learned in Japanese was “sorry”. They went back over stories of promoters who had promised them tapes of matches, but hadn’t delivered, as April lamented over a video camera that got lost in transit.
Nattie talked about the Ballpark Brawl show, and how April returned backstage from her match with a load of money, which she presumed the fans had been throwing at her “assets”. April said that she’d come to the conclusion that it’s how you look in the ring what counts for women these days, not what they do – and she recalled a mantra: “hook them with the boobs, sell them with the wrestling”.
After talking about women wrestlers who were scared to do or take moves, April talked about a female wrestler in England (who they didn’t name) who was scared to take almost anything, saying that she should go into modeling if she wanted to make a name for herself.
Nattie recalled how the Japanese fans in Zero One were enthralled by April’s look and “her voluptuousness”, then remembering how Japanese fans asked if they could get pictures of them touching her breasts. Nattie then brought up her match with Sumie Sakai, saying that she was lucky to have had her first match in Japan with someone who knew some English.
April talked about how ECW first got her interested in wrestling, and how her favourite wrestlers there were Super Crazy and Tajiri. She was struck by how different ECW was, and how that got her interested enough to sign up for a wrestling camp.
They moved onto working in Mexico and Japan, and how the language barrier could have made things dangerous for them, mainly because of the different styles of wrestling. April mentioned how she’d been left off of a tour of Japan, as they were currently going for blonde-haired wrestlers.
April said that she was stuck in something of a cycle, as she went all of last year wrestling men, as the women she had been working with had either signed for another company of quit. Now she’s back with the women, but is waiting for the cycle to continue again – although she partially wishes that she could join the WWE and get cut, if only so that she could get the higher pay-offs that others are currently getting.
April said that this could be her last year working outside the US, because the worldwide traveling was taking its toll, plus she wanted to start raising a family, and it was a case of “one or the other” in this business. She wondered out loud whether she was setting herself up for a fall, as she worried that she’d lose contact with a lot of her friends when she leaves the business.
Nattie reminisced over Owen Hart’s matches in Japan, which she watched on tape to get away from the Japanese TV diet of baseball and porn which seemed to permeate throughout its English speaking channels.
JJ asked a few questions from the chat room, including one for April, asking who she thought would win between her and Chyna/Joanie Laurer (at her peak). They then asked whether she’d rather wrestle for WWE or TNA, to which April said she had no preference.
They then asked about Kevin Kelly’s quote about how April Hunter and Slyk (Wagner Brown) played too much politics. She said that they don’t – and if they did, she’d be earning more money on the indy scene than she is now. April talked about the WWE trademark scene again, then left the show, plugging her website – aprilhunter.com – on the way out.
Elsewhere on the show, there was talk of the Christian Wrestling Entertainment show in Tulsa, OK, the train wreck that was last week’s Raw, the Coachcast and of course, Jim Ross. Listen to the full show here.
Don’t forget to join WTR Sunday Night next Sunday as we bring you updates of Bound For Glory and former WWE star Matt Morgan, as well as a recap of all the week’s news and a whole lot more!
Back To WrestleView.com
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