Andy Williams, Every Time I Die guitarist and professional wrestler known as The Butcher, has died
Andy Williams, the longtime guitarist and one of the founders of the influential American hardcore and metalcore band Every Time I Die, as well as a professional wrestler known as The Butcher, has died at the age of 48 following a medical incident at an independent wrestling event in Pennsylvania. Williams collapsed on September 5, 2026, at the conclusion of a match at an Enjoy Wrestling event at Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale, near Pittsburgh. According to a statement from the organizers, medical personnel who were at the venue immediately provided assistance and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which continued until emergency services arrived. Williams was then transported to a hospital by emergency medical services, while the remainder of the event was canceled. News of his death was confirmed by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office, and All Elite Wrestling (AEW), the organization in which Williams had performed for years, issued an official message of condolence on September 6.
According to the information available as of September 7, the official cause of death has not been announced. American media outlets that contacted the medical examiner's office reported that Williams died following a medical emergency, but there is currently no publicly confirmed finding that precisely explains what led to his collapse. In a recording of emergency communications reported on by TMZ, it is mentioned that the wrestler struck his head against the ring post during the match, but the relevant authorities have not publicly linked that detail to the cause of death. It is therefore not justified to draw conclusions as to whether this was an injury, a sudden health problem, or a combination of circumstances. What has been confirmed is that medical intervention began immediately at the venue and that Williams was transported to a hospital after resuscitation.
Collapse at the Enjoy Wrestling event
Williams was performing that evening alongside his longtime partner Jesse Guilmette, known as The Blade. The duo The Butcher and The Blade faced the team TME at an event marking Enjoy Wrestling's fifth anniversary. Following the incident, the organizer stated that Williams collapsed at the end of the match and that medical personnel at the venue immediately responded and administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation until the ambulance arrived. The audience was then sent home and the program was stopped, as confirmed by reports from specialized wrestling media and local television station CBS Pittsburgh. It was later confirmed that Williams did not survive, and on Sunday, September 6, the news spread rapidly through the two communities in which he held an exceptionally recognizable status: the American alternative music scene and professional wrestling.
Local outlet CBS Pittsburgh reported that Williams was transported to a hospital after medical personnel intervened at the event, while other sources stated that emergency responders also used a defibrillator during treatment. In its initial statement, Enjoy Wrestling did not speculate about the cause of the collapse, instead limiting itself to describing the medical intervention and thanking those who helped. That approach remained important even after the death was confirmed because, despite intense public interest, the exact medical cause had not been announced. Details from emergency communications at the venue became public, but those details in themselves do not constitute an autopsy finding or an officially established cause of death. Until such a finding is released, the circumstances of Williams's death remain subject to official medical assessment.
AEW: He was respected in and out of the ring
All Elite Wrestling published an official obituary on September 6 in which it described Williams as a pioneering musician associated with Every Time I Die and Atomic Rule, as well as a man who successfully transitioned into the world of professional wrestling. AEW particularly emphasized that he was highly respected by his peers both inside and outside the ring and expressed condolences to his family, friends, and fans. The message summarized the unusual range of Williams's career: at a time when he had already been known for decades as the guitarist of an internationally established band, he managed to build a separate identity as a professional wrestler. To part of the audience, he was Andy Williams from Every Time I Die, while another audience primarily knew him as the bearded and physically dominant The Butcher.
Williams and The Blade debuted in AEW in November 2019 on Dynamite, when they appeared alongside The Bunny and attacked Cody Rhodes. In the years that followed, they became a regular part of AEW's tag-team division and competed against a number of the organization's best-known teams. Among their more notable appearances was a Falls Count Anywhere match against The Young Bucks in July 2020, during a period when AEW was rapidly building its own identity on the American and international wrestling scene. Williams also competed as a singles wrestler, particularly during periods when The Blade was out of the ring because of injury. According to POST Wrestling, his final AEW appearance was in February 2025, and the contracts of Williams and Guilmette expired in June 2026, after which they once again became more active on the independent scene.
Active in wrestling after the end of his AEW contract
The expiration of his AEW contract did not mean the end of Williams's wrestling career. Fightful reported in June 2026 that The Butcher and The Blade had become free agents and that Williams already had a match scheduled against veteran Josh Barnett at the PRODUCE event in Brooklyn. That match took place in early August, approximately one month before the fatal event in Millvale, showing that Williams remained active even after the end of his multi-year stint with one of America's largest wrestling organizations. Appearances on the independent scene allowed him to return to the environment in which he had begun his wrestling journey and to work with various promotions outside AEW's television schedule. It was at one such event, organized as part of Enjoy Wrestling's fifth anniversary, that he performed for the final time.
Williams's wrestling story was unusual also because of the age at which he made a major breakthrough in the profession. While many professional wrestlers begin intensive training and career development in their early twenties, Williams first spent nearly two decades touring with Every Time I Die before more seriously developing a second career. His physical appearance, stage presence, and experience performing in front of large audiences naturally fit the persona of The Butcher, but success also required genuine work in the ring, learning technique, and adapting to the pace of televised wrestling. For precisely that reason, AEW presented him in its posthumous statement as an example of a successful transition from music to professional wrestling. Williams maintained both professional roles rather than completely replacing one with the other.
More than two decades with Every Time I Die
In the music world, Williams's name is inseparably connected with Every Time I Die, founded in 1998 in Buffalo, New York. According to AllMusic, the founding lineup included, among others, brothers Keith and Jordan Buckley, Andy Williams, and drummer Michael "Ratboy" Novak. Over more than two decades, the band developed a distinctive combination of hardcore punk, metalcore, alternative metal, and elements of Southern rock, accompanied by exceptionally energetic live performances. Williams's guitar was one of the key elements of that sound, particularly in the heavy, fractured riffs and sudden rhythmic shifts for which the band became known. Epitaph Records, which released several of the band's later albums, describes Every Time I Die as a powerful live and creative force that continually pushed its own boundaries.
Williams played on all nine Every Time I Die studio albums. The discography began with Last Night in Town in 2001 and continued with Hot Damn!, Gutter Phenomenon, The Big Dirty, New Junk Aesthetic, Ex Lives, From Parts Unknown, and Low Teens. The final album, Radical, was released in 2021, and the group broke up in January 2022 after more than twenty years of activity. During that period, Every Time I Die gained status as one of the more recognizable American bands at the intersection of hardcore and metalcore, with an audience extending far beyond the local western New York scene. Williams, together with the other longtime members, participated in creating a sound that influenced younger performers and left a strong mark on modern heavy music.
His contribution was not limited to live performances. AllMusic's discographic data credits him as a guitarist and, on some releases, a composer, while colleagues from the music scene often highlighted his distinctive feel for riffs. In a feature for Bandcamp Daily, Jacob Bannon of Converge described Williams as an underrated writer of guitar riffs and particularly singled out his tendency toward more unusual, angular musical ideas. That assessment helps explain why his work remained important even after the breakup of Every Time I Die: Williams was not only a recognizable face of the band but also a musician with a clear authorial signature. His ability to move between aggressive hardcore expression, heavy metal riffs, and unconventional structures was an important part of the group's identity.
Atomic Rule as a new musical chapter
After the end of Every Time I Die, Williams did not leave music. He launched Atomic Rule, a band in which, according to the group's official website and Bandcamp, he was joined by vocalist James Henderson, bassist Travis Bennington, and drummer Kevin Boutot. Atomic Rule released the three-part release With Skull Crushing Force in September 2025, followed by The Golden Rose in December of the same year. Williams was credited as guitarist on both releases, continuing to develop his musical identity outside the framework of the band that had made him famous. Atomic Rule's official website still listed an active lineup and concert plans during 2026, while Williams spoke in interviews about the new band and changes in the music industry.
Atomic Rule demonstrated that Williams did not intend to live solely from the legacy of his former band after Every Time I Die broke up. The new project was heavier and slower in certain sections, but it retained his preference for massive and unconventional guitar riffs. In early 2026, Bannon praised The Golden Rose in Bandcamp Daily for its layering, emotional depth, and quality of songwriting, while connecting Williams's new work with his recognizable creative approach. At the same time, Williams continued wrestling, meaning that his two careers were once again proceeding in parallel. It was precisely this simultaneous activity involving music releases, podcast appearances, concert plans, and wrestling matches that demonstrated how professionally active he remained in the months preceding his death.
Reactions from two communities
Following confirmation of his death, numerous messages were posted by wrestlers, promoters, and musicians. AEW emphasized Williams's standing among his colleagues, while specialized wrestling media documented a series of personal memories from people who had shared locker rooms and the ring with him. PWTorch reported that wrestler Willow Nightingale recalled his support during a period when she was not yet a permanent part of AEW and his willingness to advocate for other performers. Evil Uno described him as an exceptionally warm and generous person, and similar messages were posted by other members of the wrestling community. The common theme of those reactions was not only Williams's physical presence or television character as The Butcher, but also his relationship with colleagues and his willingness to help people behind the scenes.
A similar tone prevailed in the music community. For more than twenty years, Williams had been part of hardcore and metal touring culture, a world in which bands, technicians, promoters, and audiences often encounter one another through numerous shared tours and festivals. His death was therefore experienced not only as the loss of a former member of a well-known band, but as the loss of a person who had been present in that broader international scene for decades. Local media in western New York particularly emphasized his connection with the Buffalo area, where Every Time I Die was formed and from which it developed a global career. At the same time, reactions from professional wrestling showed that in a relatively shorter period he had managed to build equally strong personal connections in a second industry.
Cause of death has still not been officially announced
As of September 7, 2026, no official medical conclusion regarding the cause of Williams's death had been released. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the death, while media reports confirm the sequence of events from the collapse, resuscitation, and transport to the hospital through to the subsequent confirmation that the 48-year-old musician and wrestler had died. The information from emergency-services communications about him striking his head during the match may form part of the reconstruction of events, but without a medical finding it cannot be treated as the confirmed cause of death. Claims that would automatically connect the collapse with trauma, a cardiac event, or some other condition therefore remain speculative. According to publicly available information, the relevant medical authority has not released a final finding confirming such a connection.
Williams's death therefore leaves behind two clearly documented professional legacies. In music, he was one of the people who, from the late 1990s onward, shaped the sound of Every Time I Die, a band whose nine albums marked multiple generations of hardcore and metalcore listeners. In professional wrestling, under the name The Butcher, he succeeded in building a television career in AEW and remained active on the independent scene until the final weeks of his life. His path was unusual precisely because his second career did not begin after the first one ended, but developed alongside it. In the reactions of colleagues from both worlds, Williams is therefore remembered not only as a guitarist or wrestler, but as a performer who managed to be credible and recognizable in two demanding, physically intense, and markedly different industries.
Sources:
- All Elite Wrestling - official statement on the death of Andy Williams and overview of his music and wrestling career (link)
- CBS Pittsburgh - report on the collapse at the event in Millvale, resuscitation, transport to the hospital, and confirmation of death (link)
- POST Wrestling - details of the Enjoy Wrestling event, Williams's AEW debut, final appearance, and contract expiration in June 2026 (link)
- TMZ - confirmation of death citing the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office and information from emergency-services communications (link)
- AllMusic - biography and discography of Every Time I Die and information about Williams's work as a guitarist and composer (link)
- Epitaph Records - overview of the musical identity and catalog of Every Time I Die (link)
- Atomic Rule / Bandcamp - official information about the lineup and the releases With Skull Crushing Force and The Golden Rose (link)
- Bandcamp Daily - Jacob Bannon's assessment of Williams's creative approach and Atomic Rule (link)