Daniel Garcia is putting AEW’s newest $100,000 charity donation where Andy Williams’s heart was: in music. Saturday’s special edition of AEW Collision was built entirely around the late Andy “The Butcher” Williams, the AEW tag team veteran and founding guitarist of Every Time I Die who died last week at 48. The show closed with the “Butcher Battle Royal,” a mass tag-team brawl with a twist: whoever won would get to direct a $100,000 donation, made by AEW in Williams’s name, to the charity of their choosing. Garcia won it, and he didn’t have to think long about where the money should go.
“Andy Loved Helping People”
After the show went off the air, Garcia recorded a video explaining his choice, posted by AEW on X:
“A really emotional night for everybody at AEW, including myself,” Garcia said. “Andy loved everybody, and everybody loved Andy a million times over. And I think nights like tonight showed how many lives he’s impacted. And I just hope we all can do the same. And that’s why, with the $100,000, tonight’s Butcher Battle Royal goes to charity. Andy loves helping people. He loves music and he loves professional wrestling, and there’s a charity that he loves called MusiCares.org, and we’ll be donating all the proceeds, all the winnings tonight, the whole $100K, to MusiCares.org in the name of Andy Williams. I hope it helps a lot of people, a lot of artists, and helps push music and people forward. And we love you, Andy, and we know that you loved us too.”
What Is MusiCares?
MusiCares is a nonprofit built specifically for people working in music, covering everything from mental health support and addiction recovery to basic living needs, health care, and disaster relief. Per its own mission statement, MusiCares is “music’s largest provider of financial assistance and preventive services, offering trusted support for mental health, addiction recovery, basic living needs, health care and disaster relief to everyone working in music.” Garcia’s pick lines up directly with the two things Williams spent his life building: a wrestling career and, for more than two decades, a music career as a founding member of Every Time I Die and, more recently, Atomic Rule.
A Buffalo Connection
Garcia, a fellow Buffalo native, has spoken about regarding Williams as an older brother, and he’s credited Williams with giving him his “Red Death” nickname. That personal history is part of what made Garcia’s win, and his choice, land the way it did with the AEW locker room and fans watching a genuinely emotional night of wrestling. The Stunner previously covered Williams’s passing and the outpouring from both the wrestling and music worlds that followed. This is the good kind of follow-up: an AEW star turning a night’s worth of prize money into something that keeps helping people in Williams’s name.
