Andy Williams

Andrew Williams was born on 12 December 1977 in Buffalo, New York, and came of age in the North Tonawanda area. He later recalled assuming he might follow relatives into factory work, then realizing he needed another path. As a child he loved professional wrestling. As a young adult he trained for about six months at Renegade Wrestling Association in Ontario until a knee injury shut that door temporarily.

During the layoff he taught himself guitar. Dyslexia, which he discussed publicly years later, made reading music difficult, but the instrument made intuitive sense in his hands. That practical turn toward music would define the next two decades.

In 1998 Williams co-founded Every Time I Die with lead guitarist Jordan Buckley and drummer Michael Novak. He played rhythm guitar on the band's full studio catalog, from Last Night in Town (2001) and Hot Damn! (2003) through Gutter Phenomenon, The Big Dirty, New Junk Aesthetic, Ex Lives, From Parts Unknown, Low Teens, and Radical (2021).

Signed later to Epitaph, the Buffalo group became a reference point for metalcore that refused to stay narrow, mixing breakneck riffs with hooks and off-kilter grooves. Williams was known for almost never missing a live date until an AEW clash in January 2020 forced a rare absence. On 17 January 2022 the band announced it had broken up, closing a twenty-four-year chapter.

Peers and label copy often framed Every Time I Die as a live force as much as a studio band. Williams's southern-tinged hardcore guitar work sat beside Keith Buckley's vocals and Jordan Buckley's leads, helping the group tour relentlessly through the 2000s and 2010s.

When pandemic restrictions stalled album touring in 2020, Williams leaned into wrestling work based in Florida, where AEW continued to tape. The dual schedule became a defining feature of his public life: mornings and nights in different arenas of performance that he insisted shared a craft logic of peaks, valleys, and timing.

Williams resumed serious wrestling training in the mid-2010s with Josh Barnett and at Grapplers Anonymous in Lackawanna, with further work alongside friend and wrestler Jesse Guilmette. By summer 2015 he was making indie appearances, including a Smash Wrestling run-in in Toronto and a Progressive Wrestling spot powerbombing Jimmy Havoc through a table.

His early singles and tag matches came with the usual indie injuries. A torn meniscus in a 2016 Smash Wrestling match against Tarik required surgery shortly before an Every Time I Die tour. Persistence paid off: with Guilmette he captured the Pro Wrestling Rampage Tag Team Championship in 2017 as the team that would soon be known worldwide as The Butcher and The Blade.

On 27 November 2019 Williams debuted in All Elite Wrestling as The Butcher, attacking Cody Rhodes with The Blade and The Bunny. Storylines soon revealed MJF as the hirer's public face. Billed at 6 ft 3 in and roughly 273 lb from Buffalo, he cultivated a menacing heel look that friends insisted contrasted with his off-camera gentleness.

Early AEW years included feuds with Jurassic Express, alignments with the Lucha Brothers and Eddie Kingston, and later work inside Matt Hardy's Hardy Family Office. He earned a TNT Championship opportunity against Darby Allin at a house show later aired on MyAEW and, with The Blade, became AEW World Tag Team Championship contenders before falling to the Lucha Brothers.

A thumb injury and a torn biceps in late 2021 sidelined Williams for stretches of television. Weeks after the biceps tear, Every Time I Die dissolved. Williams shifted toward wrestling as his primary public craft while remaining musically active.

Through 2022 and 2023 he worked under Andrade-led groupings after Hardy's departure, feuded with Best Friends alongside Kip Sabian, challenged Orange Cassidy for the AEW International Championship, and began regular Ring of Honor appearances. When The Blade suffered a long-term back injury in 2024, Williams wrestled more singles matches against names including Swerve Strickland, Dustin Rhodes, and Claudio Castagnoli.

In 2023 Williams formed Atomic Rule with bassist Travis Bennington. The band issued a three-song demo in September 2025 and a further EP later that year, with Revolver and BrooklynVegan covering the new riffs from the former Every Time I Die guitarist.

On 5 September 2026, hours before his final wrestling match, Williams posted about finished writing and recording and teased Atomic Rule dates with Gwar. The project stood as proof that he never treated music as a closed book after the Buffalo band's end.

In June 2026 reports confirmed that The Butcher and The Blade's AEW contracts had expired after nearly seven years with the company. Williams continued working independents, including Enjoy Wrestling shows in the Pittsburgh area that kept him close to both the Western Pennsylvania wrestling corridor and his Western New York roots.

Interviews repeatedly returned to the same contrast: an imposing tattooed wrestler who colleagues called kind, funny, and intellectually curious. He compared building a match to arranging a song. He told Alicia Atout that making friends laugh was his true calling.

Willow Nightingale later credited him with advocating for her before she was signed. Josh Alexander called him one of the best people he had met. RJ City joked that Williams was so cultured it made both careers look wilder. The tributes after his death stressed character as much as championships or album cuts.

On 5 September 2026 Williams worked a tag match for Enjoy Wrestling at Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. After the bout he collapsed. On-site doctors administered CPR until paramedics arrived. The remainder of the card was cancelled and the building evacuated so emergency crews could work.

He was taken to Allegheny General Hospital and pronounced dead at age 48. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the death the next day. Early reputable coverage did not publish a final cause of death while the medical examination continued.

AEW called him a trailblazing musician who made a successful transition into wrestling and was respected in and out of the ring. Former Every Time I Die vocalist Keith Buckley wrote that Williams made people feel like they belonged. My Chemical Romance dedicated a live performance to him. Malakai Black dedicated a Progress title win. Tony Khan opened a Ring of Honor taping with a ten-bell salute, and AEW's 12 September 2026 Collision served as a memorial show.

Daniel Garcia, another Buffalo native, won a battle royal tied to a $100,000 charity donation in Williams's honor and chose MusiCares. A free celebration of life was set for 27 September 2026 at Buffalo RiverWorks.

Williams left a dual catalog: nine Every Time I Die studio albums plus Atomic Rule recordings on one side, and years of AEW, ROH, and indie tape on the other. More lasting, in the words of those who worked with him, was the reputation of a mentor and friend who bridged hardcore crowds and wrestling locker rooms.

Fans who found AEW through Every Time I Die, and musicians who discovered his wrestling persona later, met the same person peers described as a kind giant. That crossover life is the core of his public memory.