The Cauliflower Alley Club has been celebrating professional wrestling since 1965. The fraternal order hosts yearly reunion dinners, where the group honors wrestlers who they feel have achieved some kind of legacy or standing in the business. While there are many awards, one award that stands out is the Lou Thesz Lifetime Achievement Award. This year’s Lou Thesz award was given to former WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Natalya, who is the first woman to receive the award.
“To be the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Lou Thesz award means so much to me as Lou Thesz is held as a standard bearer in wrestling,” Natalya wrote on Instagram. “Like everything worth spending a life chasing, the wrestling business has never been easy. It’s not easy today. It never gets easy, and if it ever does, I’ll know that’s when it’s time to hang them up.”
Natalya has been with WWE for nearly 20 years, and in recent months has branched out to other promotions. The former “Raw” Women’s Champion wrestled in independent promotions like the NWA and GCW, where she was one of many WWE stars to take part in Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport. Natalya had a busy weekend, as she wrestled at AAA’s TripleMania event in Mexico City, and then traveled to “WWE Raw,” where she unsuccessfully challenged Women’s Intercontinental Champion Becky Lynch. The match took its toll on Natalya, who was recently seen in a sling, though she did not appear visibly injured in the photo with her Lou Thesz Award plaque.
