Peter Avalon Recalls His Time As Norv Fernum in Impact Wrestling

In an interview with Bodyslam (via Fightful), Peter Avalon spoke about his time in Impact Wrestling, when he wrestled as Norv Fernum. He made his debut in a loss to EC3 at Bound for Glory 2013. Here are highlights:

On debuting for Impact: “I had no say whatsoever. They hit up a local guy in the area who hit me up and I just fit the role they were looking for at the time. I was at a real awful point in my life. I was at my skinniest and some of my most mentally unwell, as well. Sometimes things would fall into my lap at a weird time and I got a lot of really cool wrestling gigs in my life when I was at my absolute — physically and mentally, some of my worst, almost rock bottom.”

On how he felt about that time in his life: “I have an incredible time at Lucha VaVoom and then IMPACT Wrestling was happening at the same time as I was miserable. So I fit the role of — what they were asking for was somebody who did not look like a wrestler. Here comes skinny little Pete. Here I am! I’m at my absolute smallest. I think I weighed a buck thirty-nine (139 lbs.). I was not doing well, man, I looked ill. They booked me in a singlet and they said, ‘You’re going to be a nerd’ and I was like, ‘Alright, no problem.’ They ended up buying me clothes from Target and brought me back corduroy pants, a red shirt, which I still have the red t-shirt, and then they had some flannel. Looked like a tech guy or something.”

On teaming with Dewey Barnes: “Then I had my partner, Dewey Barnes, who wrestled in Tennessee and he was one of TNA’s actual merchandise handlers, so he was behind the merch table when the show was happening. They teamed us up because he was a nerdy-looking guy too. So they just put us together as nerds to enhance Ethan Carter III during his whole debut there. I think our producer at the time was Jeff Jarrett. In the middle of that, he left, and that’s where any nerd momentum stopped and they stopped running with us.”