Andy Williams Died Beside the Partner Who Trained Him

Andy Williams, the wrestler known as The Butcher and founding guitarist of Every Time I Die, died at 48 after collapsing during an independent tag match in Millvale, Pennsylvania. He was teaming with Jesse Guilmette, The Blade, at Enjoy Wrestling’s Five Years show on September 5 when he went down near the finish.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed he died that Saturday night. No cause of death has been released. The television company that made his ring name famous was no longer his employer. The partner who taught him to wrestle was still in the ring.

An Anniversary Show Stopped in Millvale

Enjoy Wrestling was marking five years at Mr. Smalls Theatre, a converted church at 400 Lincoln Avenue whose 800-guest capacity theatre usually holds concerts. Williams and Guilmette were challenging TME, Duke Davis and Ganon Jones Jr., for the promotion’s tag titles when the match came apart.

People in the building said the bout had been moving as planned until Williams looked unsteady. His legs buckled. He went to the floor. Guilmette tried to get him up and called for help, and for a moment the room did not see it.

Doctors on the promotion’s staff started CPR. An AED was used. An ambulance took him from the venue, and the rest of the card was called off. Enjoy Wrestling posted from the hospital while it waited.

THE NIGHT IN MILLVALE

1. September 5, 2026: Williams collapses near the end of the Five Years tag match and is treated in the ring.
2. Minutes later: Staff give CPR, an AED is applied, and an ambulance leaves Mr. Smalls Theatre.
3. Saturday night: The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office later confirms he has died.
4. September 6, 2026: Enjoy Wrestling posts “Butcher Forever,” and All Elite Wrestling issues its statement.

The first public word from the promotion was spare and still hopeful. Then the medical examiner’s confirmation closed the argument that had run overnight.

Andy collapsed at the end of his match this evening.

Our doctors on staff tended to him immediately, administering CPR until the ambulance arrived.

We sent everyone home and are at the hospital now waiting for more information.

Thanks to everyone who helped and has reached out https://t.co/A2rnCnOOgR

— Enjoy Wrestling (@EnjoyWrestle) September 6, 2026

What the Dispatch Audio Does Not Settle

Emergency radio from the scene described a male wrestler who had “hit his head” and struck a ring post. Another call asked for “emergent lifting assistance” while police and EMS were already inside. That tape was public before any ruling on why he died.

Witnesses described a different last minute: a man who looked spent, then wobbly, then down. Those two pictures can sit together. A bump on a post can happen in the same match as a collapse. Neither one is a cause of death, and treating the radio traffic as a verdict is a leap the examiner has not made.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The collapse: Williams went down near the end of the tag match on September 5 and did not recover.
• The response: Doctors on staff gave CPR, an AED was used, and he left by ambulance.
• The confirmation: The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said he died Saturday night.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The head impact: Dispatch audio mentioned a ring post; no official finding ties that blow to his death.
• The autopsy: No cause or manner of death has been made public.

An early social post claiming he had already died was denied by Enjoy Wrestling, which told the poster to take it down. Hours later the medical examiner confirmed the death, and the promotion’s denial disappeared. The mess of that night is now part of the record, and it still does not explain the medicine.

The Blade Was Already Trying to Lift Him

Guilmette was not a random partner drawn for an anniversary show. He had trained Williams at Grapplers Anonymous in the Buffalo area, then followed him into the odd-couple act they built in 2017. They called themselves The Butcher and The Blade, hit-men with no backstory, and they kept the names when television arrived.

On September 5 he was the first person to touch Williams after the fall. Rich Fann, who was in the building, said the finish came while Williams was already in trouble, and that Guilmette had to wave people in because the first collapse did not register.

It was towards the end of the match. He seemed to be in a bit of dire straits, they went to a finish, and he was a little wobbly. Andy then went down, and Blade helped him up a bit and then tried to get folks to help, but no one saw at first.

Rich Fann, attendee, Enjoy Wrestling Five Years

Guilmette’s wife, Laura Dennis, had managed them in AEW as The Bunny. The three of them were a unit long before Dynamite needed a heel team. When the contracts ended, that unit went back to rooms like Millvale. The person with the most at stake on Saturday was the man already holding him.

AEW Issued a Tribute After the Contracts Lapsed

All Elite Wrestling posted on September 6 that it was saddened to learn of the passing, calling Williams a trailblazing musician who “made a successful transition into the world of professional wrestling.” The sentence is the company’s. The calendar sits beside it.

All Elite Wrestling is saddened to learn of the passing of Andy Williams, aka The Butcher. A trailblazing musician with ETID and Atomic Rule, Williams made a successful transition into the world of professional wrestling and was incredibly respected by his peers both in and out… pic.twitter.com/FZ5WhSGsFl

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) September 6, 2026

Williams and Guilmette debuted on the November 27, 2019 episode of Dynamite by attacking Cody Rhodes. They spent the early AEW years in the tag division, including a Falls Count Anywhere match with The Young Bucks on July 22, 2020. Guilmette later had his back fused. Williams worked singles against Swerve Strickland, Dustin Rhodes, and Claudio Castagnoli while he waited.

His last AEW match was February 22, 2025, on Collision, against Gabe Kidd. The contracts expired in June 2026. In March he had said it had been a year and seven days since his last AEW bout, that he was in the best shape of his life, and that the company would call if it needed him. The call that defined the last chapter was an indie booking, not a television return.

MATCHES LOGGED BY YEAR

The public ten-year in-ring record counts 215 matches from 2016 through 2025. The drop to four in 2025 is the television fade in a single column. He was still taking indie dates in 2026, including a match in August against Josh Barnett, one of the men who had trained him. AEW’s statement was a former employer’s eulogy, and it was not small. It was also not the workplace that had him on September 5.

He Learned Guitar After a Wrestling Injury

Williams was born December 12, 1977, in Buffalo and raised around North Tonawanda. He wanted to wrestle first. He trained at Renegade Wrestling Association in Ontario, wrecked a knee, and picked up a guitar during the layoff. In 1998 he formed Every Time I Die with Jordan Buckley and Michael Novak. The band became the job. Wrestling stayed the itch.

He started taking indie dates in 2015 and had his first singles match on March 20, 2016, at 38, billed at 6 ft 3 in and 273 lb. He tore a meniscus in that Smash Wrestling loss to Tarik and still left on an Every Time I Die tour ten days after surgery. On September 9, 2017, he and Guilmette, then working as Braxton Sutter, won the Pro Wrestling Rampage tag titles in their first match as a team. They held them 63 days. Williams missed a defense because he was playing in Newcastle on the Low Teens tour.

He talked about balancing music and wrestling as two versions of the same craft. “Wrestling, to me, is like a song,” he said. “Once I kind of understood how to write that ‘song,’ it was like, ‘Oh, ok, that’s cool, there’s an intro, there’s an outro, there’s a chorus.’” Carson Pace, the Callous Daoboys singer, remembered a promise that never got kept: someday Williams would show him how a match and a song were built the same way.

Nine Albums Sat Behind the Ring Name

Every Time I Die released nine studio albums with Williams on rhythm guitar, from Last Night in Town in 2001 through Radical in 2021. He had not missed a live date until January 2020, when AEW’s Bash at the Beach against Diamond Dallas Page and Dustin Rhodes kept him off a stage. The band played its last show on December 11, 2021. Williams, Buckley, Stephen Micciche, and Clayton Holyoak announced the split on January 17, 2022.

THE OTHER JOB ON THE BOOKS

• The catalog: Williams played on all nine Every Time I Die studio albums, ending with Radical in 2021.
• The split: The last show was December 11, 2021; four members ended the band on January 17, 2022.
• The new group: Atomic Rule, with James Henderson, Travis Bennington, and Kevin Boutot, was still cutting music.
• The last post: On September 5 he shared an Instagram video of the band working on new recordings, hours before the match.

Keith Buckley, who had been on the other side of that 2022 break, posted “I love you, Big Man.” Jordan Buckley, Micciche, and Holyoak, now in Better Lovers, posted too. Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta wrote that life can be cruel and unfair, “and that’s why we need people like Andy Williams around.” Metal Blade Records founder Brian Slagel said the label had hired Williams for A&R work and that he was “just such a good dude.”

Matt Hardy, who had them in the Hardy Family Office, called him a kind, funny and deep person and a joy to work with. Kyle Fletcher remembered a locker-room talk about keeping a life outside the business, and how much Williams loved his fiancée. The music people were not adding color to a wrestling obituary. They were burying a guitarist who had spent 24 years in vans before the ring name stuck.

Cause of Death Remains Unreleased

As of September 6, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office had confirmed the death and had not named a cause. The dispatch tape, the AED, and the eyewitness accounts are what the public has. They are not a ruling.

Enjoy Wrestling still has dates on the calendar, including Tacomania on October 4. AEW’s next Dynamite is the first television show since the statement, and wrestlers in the replies asked for a moment on that broadcast. Guilmette has not issued a public statement of his own.

Williams was 48. He died in a music venue, in a tag match, next to the friend who had taught him the hold. The examiner still has the last word, and that word is not out.