A few thoughts on my 6 years of knowing Matt.
Unbeknownst to many, Matt often sent work my way - sending me contacts for shows that he either couldn't make the numbers work for, or that clashed with his shift work. A lot of people assumed that once I got into event promotion that our relationship would suffer. It was the opposite, however. Matt was always very supportive both behind the scenes and whenever we bumped into each other at Shows or when I'd head down to train for one of his.
Every year he'd tell me he was getting too old to be loading the truck himself and was thinking of selling up, but every year he'd do it all over again to make sure NZSM was such a great spectacle in the New Zealand Strongman scene.
We'd spoken at length recently about preserving the stories of past New Zealand Strongest Man winners so that they would never be lost to the world. Tyler Connely and I were set to travel to interview Matt at his home in Papamoa as the first part of this series. Matt spoke about how he had urged his father to write a book about his time playing for Manawatu in the late 70s in a team full of All Blacks. Unfortunately his dad never got around to writing his book and Matt never got around to telling us all of his NZSM stories on camera.😔 Thank you Matt for the massive impact you've had on the lives of so many aspiring Strongmen (and women) - myself included. You would always open up your home (both Titirangi and Papamoa) to let me train and steer my training in the right direction. "Either it's too heavy or you're too f*ckin weak" "10 sets of 32 on the preacher curl." "Strongman rewards strength and punishes weakness!" 😂
You will be sorely missed by many. Without you there would be no Strongman Series so for that we should all be thankful. Rest easy m8. 💪
Rest in peace Matt Rossiter. A true legend of the sport. A dark day for Strongman in New Zealand. 😔
