Andy “The Butcher” Williams collapsed as a tag-team match near Pittsburgh reached its finish, and he was dead hours later. Every Time I Die, the metalcore act out of Buffalo, New York, counted him as its founding rhythm guitarist before he turned professional wrestler; he died on Saturday, September 5, 2026. He was 48.
Williams went down as the bout wound up at Enjoy Wrestling’s Five-Year Anniversary show at Mr. Smalls Theater in Millvale, Pennsylvania, and an ambulance carried him to a hospital. He died later that night, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office told TMZ. No cause has been made public, and more examination is expected before one is settled on.
Collapse at a Five-Year Anniversary Show
In the ring with Williams was Jesse “The Blade” Guilmette, his longtime partner in the tag team The Butcher and The Blade, and the two were facing TME. The promotion scrapped the rest of the card and sent the crowd home.
“Our doctors on staff tended to him immediately, administering CPR until the ambulance arrived,” the promotion wrote on X.
Rich Fann, who watched it happen, told POST Wrestling that Williams looked wobbly as the match neared its end and then dropped, and that Guilmette tried to get him back on his feet before signaling for help. By Fann’s account, ring crew, medics and fans cleared a route out, and Williams was given chest compressions, ice and a defibrillator before being carried out on a board.
Dylan Meerhoff, an audience member, described the scene to WTAE in an account reported September 7: “I guess his legs buckled and he collapsed, and they were helping him up and carrying them to the back. And you just expect that’s part of the show because they do that sometimes. Then they got further back to take him out into the back room, and he collapsed again.”
In a September 7 update, TMZ said it had obtained dispatch audio from Williams’ mid-match collapse.
From Metalcore Stages to the Ring
Wrestling had gripped Williams since childhood, but the idea that he might do it himself waited until roughly 2014 to arrive, he said on the “HardLore” podcast. What flipped the switch was a card he attended that had been staged by Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, an independent promotion based in Southern California. He trained and picked up indie bookings on the side through the 2010s while still touring with his band, and wrestled his first complete match in 2015, at age 37.
He debuted as “The Butcher” in All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in 2019 and stayed nearly seven years with the company and its sister brand, Ring of Honor. That chapter ended in June 2026, when his contract went unrenewed, sending him and Guilmette back to independent shows.
People who knew Williams away from the ring described him as mild-mannered and laid-back. In it, he traded that for snarling menace, a heavily tattooed brawler performing as half of The Butcher and The Blade. Music and wrestling were two forms of the same work, he said again and again, telling “HardLore” that anyone who can write a song can also structure a match, because both are assembled out of peaks and valleys.
Nine Albums and a New Band
Every Time I Die was a band Williams helped start, and he handled rhythm guitar from its founding in 1998 until it dissolved in 2022. All nine of the group’s studio records carry his playing, a run that closed with 2021’s “Radical.” The band’s deal with Epitaph Records came in 2008; the split was announced in early 2022.
A factory job was what Williams assumed awaited him as he was Growing up near Buffalo, the way it had for his father and uncles. Dyslexia and other learning disabilities kept him from ever learning to read music; the guitar, by contrast, clicked for him the moment he had one in his hands, he told interviewer Renee Paquette in 2022. In 2017, speaking with wrestling personality Alicia Atout, he said his true purpose in life was getting his friends to laugh.
With the band wound down, Williams started Atomic Rule in 2023, and the project put out a demo EP in 2025. Hours before his collapse, in a video posted to the band’s Instagram account, he reported that writing on new songs was finished and that the group had dates lined up with Gwar in November and December. “Get ready, because Atomic Rule is going to be coming and smashing it,” he said.
Tributes From Both of His Worlds
AEW said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Williams’ death had saddened the company. The statement called him a trailblazing musician with Every Time I Die and Atomic Rule who successfully moved into professional wrestling and drew deep respect from his peers both inside and outside the ring, and the promotion offered condolences to his family, friends, and fans.
Corey Graves, a Pittsburgh native and professional wrestler, remembered Williams as a friend in comments reported September 7. “His passion for music and wrestling was unlike anyone else’s. A truly good guy that no one could say a bad word about. He had an awesome presence and brought laughter to every room he was in,” Graves said.
Word that Williams had been hospitalized prompted Jordan Buckley, a former Every Time I Die guitarist, to write on X asking anyone who prays to pray for him. Better Lovers, the band Buckley went on to start, was founded by three ETID alumni in all.
Coheed and Cambria’s drummer, Josh Eppard, got to know Williams on a 2019 tour. He said the death was beyond heartbreaking, and he recalled a friend he assumed was just wrestling for fun with his buddies turning up on television — something he had found hard to believe at the time.
Anyone who knew Williams came away feeling loved by him, said Colin Young, the actor, musician and “HardLore” host, in a statement. Matt Hardy, a wrestler who worked with Williams at AEW, called him kind, funny, and deep, and talented in both of his careers.
Cody Rhodes, the WWE star who was part of The Butcher’s AEW debut, told OutKick Dropkick in remarks reported September 7: “Maybe if you had judged that book by its cover, you wouldn’t know how truly special, intelligent, artistic, and beautiful of a person that he was.” Of the debut itself, Rhodes said: “He came up under the ring and they beat me up, and I definitely didn’t get to spend near enough time with him as a person.”
Guilmette, his tag-team partner for years, stood beside him in the ring for what became Williams’ final match.