Matt Connelly is one of the co-founders of AWE along with Dave Stockbridge & Ryan Bowen. Having found the sport in 2019, Matt started training with the Adelaide club lead by Tim Graham. Matt has an extensive history of bodybuilding prior to starting arm wrestling having 20+ years of gym experience behind him.

After Tim Graham started full time study he asked Matt to take over the running of the Adelaide club. Matt agreed and immediately got to work in branding & promoting the club. This included naming the club the SA Titans, printing T-shirts, bumper stickers and a heavy focus on social media awareness.

Matt met Dave Stockbridge via the arm wrestling club and formed a fast friendship. Matt & Dave started doing podcasts together interviewing combat sports athletes which eventually evolved into a separate podcast dedicated specifically to arm wrestling.

Matt & Dave approached Ryan Bowen about having a match against Chance Shaw in Adelaide to which Ryan agreed. When organising the details, the three men decided it would work best as an organisation. Ideas were formed and the AWE - Arm Wrestling Entertainment company was created.

Matt has been promoting the AWE for the past two years and has competed in India, Ireland and Australia under it's banner. With his insane level of endurance in matches and complete refusal to give up, Matt has the ability to win from seemingly dire positions. Typically a defensive top roller, Matt has won many matches by exhausting his opponents.

Matt loves the sport of arm wrestling and continues to promote it with events, podcasts, competing and creating as much content as possible to push the sport to as many people as he can.