The Butcher and the Blade are just two weird dudes without a backstory.
The Butcher (aka Every Time I Die’s Andy Williams) was a guest on Miro’s live stream and talked about how he broke into the wrestling business—and how he came up with such a unique gimmick.
Williams, now featured each week on All Elite Wrestling programming, explained that was looking to get in better shape a few years ago and ultimately found the Grapplers Anonymous school in his hometown of Buffalo, and said Jesse Guilmette (aka Pepper Parks, now The Blade) invited him to train one night and it snowballed from there. Williams has been involved with professional wrestling for six years overall, four of them spent as “The Butcher and The Blade” alongside Blade.
Many fans have wondered where the inspiration from their visually interesting gimmick came from, but as he explained it, there’s not much to tell besides it was just inspired by odd ’90s movie villains. They’re just weird dudes without a story, that’s it.
“It was crazy because, I always envision first before I do, just to see if it all makes sense. And I came up with this weird character, these two weird characters, based on ‘90s movies ‘specialty thugs.’ This is not like the main heel, but the guy you have to beat to get to the heel, you know what I mean? So, when the local guys can’t get it done, they have to call the ‘weird dudes from Milwaukee’, and then they come. And they have weird characteristics that are never explained, like a monocle and a weird mask, and they’re just hitmen for hire. That literally is it.
“It’s so funny because people ask me, ‘What’s your character?’ and I’m like, ‘Watch any ‘90s action movie. A character like me will show up.’ And that’s the whole thing. There’s no alternate—I just told it to Jesse because he’s such a ‘90s movie buff and I’m a ‘90s movie buff, I was like, ‘Let’s just be weird dudes that never get anything explained. We’re going to call ourselves ‘The Butcher and The Blade.’ You’re going to always refer to me as ‘Butch’ and I’m going to always refer to you as ‘Blade.’ And that’s it.”
Williams explained that he wasn’t sure how it would go over with his partner, but noted that it came at the right time and closed by saying it all worked out in the end. “I think at the time he was just so down on wrestling and trying to get it back that he was like, ‘Sure man, I’ll take that ride with you.’ And here we are. It’s been pretty cool.”
