Tragedy struck the family, friends, and fans of rock star and professional wrestler Andy Williams. He passed away at 48 years old after suffering a medical emergency while wrestling a tag team match. He was working an Enjoy Wrestling event at Mr. Small’s Theater in Millvale, PA, with his tag team partner as The Butcher & The Blade. At the end of his match, Williams suddenly collapsed, causing doctors to rush over and promoters to call off the rest of the night. Currently, there’s no word on what exactly happened to him to cause such a tragic medical emergency.
Andy Williams was wrestling underneath the All Elite Wrestling (AEW) promotion as The Butcher in his tag team The Butcher and The Blade. However, when he wasn’t wrestling, he was also a rock star. He played rhythm guitar for the heavy metal band Every Time I Die since their formation in 1998. He remained with the band until they dissolved in 2022.
In a 2017 interview with Already Heard, Williams said that the reason Every Time I Die continued to work is that they always strived to make something better than the last time. That constantly fueled them whenever they would worry about “phoning it in.”
Fans Mourn the Loss of Wrestler and Rock Star Andy Williams
“That’s something we take pride in. We always say ‘If the thing we’re doing currently isn’t as good as what we just did, then there’s no point in doing it anymore.’ That’s what is keeping us going and the fact that everything we put out, we think is better than what we put out before. Once that doesn’t happen, we’re going to break up,” Andy Williams told the outlet.
The fact that The Butcher was able to balance life as a guitarist and a wrestler at the same time was extremely impressive. For Williams, though, it was never a matter of choosing which to do. In a 2015 interview with Loudwire, he admitted that pro wrestling had been in his blood since he was a child. Both aspects were of equal importance in his life.
“When I was probably 10 years old, I got asked to do an art project where you take something out of a magazine and you paint over it,” Andy Williams recalled. “I chose a picture of Ric Flair stabbing Greg Valentine in the head and I still have the painting. My whole life I’ve been into pro wrestling.”
(Photo by Mairo Cinquetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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