"I just went into it with a simple mindset of staying on two bulls and making the final round, then hopefully the win would fall into place," he said.
"In the first round I got a young bull I hadn't seen before and I got an average score.
"Then the second bull - I knew of him. He was a bit of an older bull and I stayed on. I had seen my cousin ride him just before me, so I knew what I had to do."
His score was the best of the night in the qualifying rounds, meaning he went into the eight-person final as the number one seed.
Unfortunately, his two cousins Paddy Church and Johnson Davis, missed out on making the final.
Church was given first pick of the bulls for the final round after qualifying as the number one seed.
"I picked the bull that I thought I could win with and he turned out to be the bucking bull of the lot. I knew of him and I had ridden him before," he said.
"I went out last, it was quite a lot of pressure. I had to stay on him to win. Everyone else that went out had got a score."
Church said the bull gave him an awesome ride despite standing on his groin at the end of the run.
" He was really hard to ride and he threw heaps of tricks at me and I managed to hold on for the eight seconds," he said.
Despite the painful finish, he walked from the arena and was presented with the trophy.
Event manager Craig Douglas said he was over the moon to see a Kiwi win the event. He said Church had won over the crowd.
"When I presented him with the buckle and the cup I was ecstatic," Douglas said. "The whole arena lifted when he came out [for his final run] because he was the kid that was not supposed to make the final ... everyone knew he was the underdog."
The event was the first Professional Bull Riders event on New Zealand soil. The Professional Bull Riders organisation is the biggest bull riding organisation in the world and attracts the best riders to their events.
Church said his dream was to work his way up on to the Professional Bull Riders world circuit and become a world champion one day.
