Natalia Markova spoke to Steve Fall of SEScoops about her claims of Carmella stealing her catchphrase.
The History
On July 18, Natalia Markova sent out a tweet addressing WWE superstar Carmella. On Monday Night Raw, Carmella had just labeled herself as “A Bad Ass with a Great Ass” while cutting a promo.
NWA’s Natalia Markova had been branding herself under that title for some time, and even has had t-shirts with the title printed. The catchphrase is also in her bio.
Many fans on Twitter began to call out Carmella for using the catchphrase.
This is not the first time Carmella has been called out for using someone else’s gimmick as Jersey Shore star Angelina Pivarnick also publicly called out Carmella and accused her of gimmick infringement.
Carmella is still using the title, and recently sent out a tweet with the caption, “A badass with a great ass??” Natalia responded to the tweet with a quote tweet asking, “I mean…. Who did it better? Let her know?”
“It’s Stealing”
Natalia Markova sat down with Steve Fall of SEScoops to talk about these claims and her feelings on them.
Natalia said:
“Well, it’s similar to this Walmart [getting her purse stolen from her] situation. Somebody’s just stealing my stuff. And I don’t think it matters if it’s intellectual property or physical properties, still stealing.
“So, that’s how I look at that. And obviously, those people they know that it’s my catchphrase, the wrestling world is small. You know, everybody knows everything. And the way I feel about it, I think it’s wrong.”
Natalia Markova on Carmella allegedly stealing her line
“Like, if you said once, like the first time it said it last week, and I was like, ‘okay, whatever.’ I guess they just didn’t know, somehow, maybe, I don’t know.
“But then people were tagging like crazy amounts of people were tweeting, like, ‘Oh, my God, come on, that’s Natalia. That’s her catchphrase. Everybody knows that.’
“It’s actually one of my fans, like this supporter at FN wrestling podcast came up with this phrase for me. And I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just use it. It’s amazing.’ So that was my thing.
“Everybody knew that people tweeted on them and showed them. I mean, I feel like it’s a little disrespectful. But I’m not really mad about it. I just think it’s wrong. You know, when somebody steals, it’s not good. I don’t approve of that, you know?”
“A Bad Ass with a Great Ass” Branding
The NWA wrestler continued and talked more about how the catchphrase has become a part of her branding.
She said:
“I actually have T-shirts, my fans, were buying those T-shirts, they have those T-shirts is like a brand catchphrase. And so I know that I mean, I’m not like trying to talk law right now. But I know that if you have an item for sale with this, that means that belongs to you.
“So and again, some people would be like, ‘Oh, you know, she’s way more popular.’ So? Why are you saying that?
“But again, so it’s trying to tell me if some rich person will steal from a poor poor person, for example, that makes it not a crime. That’s still the same crime. I’m for equal rights. I think it doesn’t matter.
“If you have a million followers or you have 40,000 followers on Twitter, you’re still the same person, and it’s your property and that property got stolen. That’s the same level of crime.
“That’s how I see that. So I feel like still stealing because I have a T-shirt that says that it’s not just me at home, saying, ‘Hey, I’m a badass with a great ass. This is my T-shirt. I wear it at home.’ No, that’s an actual product that people buy.
“Everybody knows me for that and I am in wrestling. I’m on NWA. I’m actually on WWE Network, my matches are on there. I’ve done AEW, I’ve wrestled in over 20 countries all over the world.
“I’m about to go to AAA this week. I’m not just you know, like some I’m not known wrestler; I’m a known wrestler. And people know that and it was so many tweets.
“I want to actually thank you guys, It was nice to see your support. Everybody was like, ‘Come on, don’t do this. It’s just not good. It’s not nice.’ And why would you do that? We’re all wrestlers who do the same thing. Come up with your own stuff. It’s not that hard. Come up with your own.”
Was it WWE or Carmella?
Steve Fall then asked Markova who she believed came up with the idea to use the phrase.
“Well, obviously, I don’t know how it works in WWE, or how they do that. And again, I mean, I know that it can be either somebody gave her the phrase, and she’d be like, ‘Whatever. That’s my job. I do my job.’ Either those people stole it or maybe she came up with the idea and told people and they’re like, ‘Okay, let’s do that.’
“But whoever, I think doesn’t really matter who came up with the idea. It’s still stealing because it’s on TV and her saying that. So it doesn’t really change the results, who’s guilty, you know,” Markova responded.
Natalia is currently performing in the NWA regularly, but she is also working many independent dates. In the rest of the interview, Markova talks about her story of coming from Moscow, training in Japan, her match with Mickie James, and so much more.
Watch Natalia Markova’s interview with Steve Fall for SEScoops:
