Tony Khan Opens Up About Conversations With ‘The Butcher’ Andy Williams Before His Passing

Andy Williams had been in talks with Tony Khan.

‘The Butcher’ Andy Williams passed away at the age of 48 on September 5th. His former employer, All Elite Wrestling, did a series of tributes for him and had an episode of Collision dedicated to him that closed with a video package on his life and career.

It was shared that Williams had been in conversations with AEW President Tony Khan about helping out behind the scenes. Khan expanded on that during the All Out media call.

“Andy (Williams) was very interested in working in the office and he had really good ideas, so, I had set up a meeting with Andy and the AEW official last month to talk about his thoughts on ways he could contribute to promoting, and Andy had ideas that he could do music shows in collaboration with AEW, and build some events outside of the wrestling show that would get eyeballs on the wrestling show and maybe bring some people from the music community into wrestling. That is one of his ideas. He had a number of good ideas, including that, and I thought it was really compelling what Andy was saying, and I was interested in it. So that is why we set up a meeting, and Andy came in last month to talk about it and it was something we were still actively working on and unfortunately, at the time of his passing, it was still something that was in progress, and Andy contributed in many different ways to AEW and he really loved the company, loved the wrestling and I wanted Andy to stay a part of it, and I also really loved the ideas he had. I thought they would add value and also, he was the big contributor there. He was gonna be somebody that would bridge the world of music and wrestling, and to have him say he would play the shows and help bring in the fans and promote AEW that way, I thought it was really interesting and exciting. So, that was one of the main points of Andy’s ideas. He had several good ideas and that one in particular really stood out to me. I thought it was a very strong concept, and when Andy passed… it’s very hard on a lot of the people in AEW. I think a lot of people really, really liked Andy here. He was a very, very well-liked guy backstage, for many, many reasons. He’s a very talented person, very humble, very, very kind, big heart. Just a really nice guy, and I wanted to make sure we did a show in his memory that was befitting stature and… the way that everybody felt about him and I thought that a lot of that came across very accurately in the Andy Williams tribute show and I was very, very proud of everyone in AEW who came together that day and everybody involved in putting that together for Andy, and we’ll miss him very much.”

Williams joined All Elite Wrestling in the company’s launch year, 2019. The Buffalo, New York native had a 10-year wrestling career.

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