Andy Williams, Every Time I Die Guitarist and Pro Wrestler 'The Butcher', Dies at 48

Andy Williams, the founding guitarist of the metalcore band Every Time I Die who later became a professional wrestler known as "The Butcher," died on Saturday night at the age of 48. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed his death, according to Rolling Stone. No cause of death was immediately known.

Williams collapsed at the end of a tag team match at an Enjoy Wrestling event held at Mr. Smalls Theater in Millvale, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Enjoy Wrestling said its on-staff doctors tended to him immediately, administering CPR until an ambulance arrived. The remainder of the event was cancelled, Loudwire reported. His tag team partner that night was Jesse "The Blade" Guilmette, a frequent collaborator in the ring.

All Elite Wrestling released a statement on Sunday saying it was saddened to learn of Williams's passing and extended condolences to his family, friends and fans. Williams had spent seven years with AEW and its sister circuit Ring of Honor, a run that concluded in June 2026. He began training as a wrestler in the 2010s, working independent circuits before making his AEW debut as The Butcher in 2019.

Before wrestling, Williams was best known as the founding rhythm guitarist of Every Time I Die, a Buffalo, New York, band formed in 1998 that helped define metalcore — a genre fusing hardcore punk's intensity with heavy metal's precision. He played on all nine of the band's studio albums, the last being 2021's Radical. The band broke up in 2022.

After the breakup, Williams joined the group Atomic Rule, balancing music with his wrestling schedule. In a social media post hours before his death, he told Atomic Rule fans the band was hard at work on new music. In a separate interview, he said a project chronicling the history of Every Time I Die was in the works, though he admitted a reunion of the band was unlikely.

Williams lived two public careers that rarely intersect in such a literal way — a guitarist who traded stages for rings without leaving one fully behind. The musicians and wrestlers who shared those spaces with him are, by every account, the ones who felt both losses at once.