WWE Hall of Famer Sounds Alarm After Two Wrestling Stars Die Weeks Apart: “Something Is Going On”

(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) A WWE Hall of Famer is very concerned after two wrestling stars have died just weeks apart. WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff is questioning whether the industry could be witnessing a troubling pattern. The former WCW executive addressed the deaths of Andy Williams and Benjamin Satterley during a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast.

He expressed concern about losing two performers in their 40s.

Williams, who wrestled under the name The Butcher, died Sept. 5 after collapsing following a match for independent promotion Enjoy Wrestling in Millvale, Pennsylvania. Doctors attended to Williams at the venue and performed CPR before he was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Less than a month later, Satterley, better known to wrestling fans as Pac, died Sept. 27 at age 40. The former WWE and All Elite Wrestling star was found unresponsive inside a vehicle near Chicago, just one day after competing at AEW’s All Out pay-per-view event.

Neither wrestler’s official cause of death had been publicly disclosed. Speaking with podcast co-host Conrad Thompson, Bischoff questioned whether the deaths were simply an unfortunate coincidence.

“Something’s going on,” Bischoff said, according to Wrestling Inc..

“Every once in a while, someone will get struck by lightning, but you’ve got two guys at 40 years old — something’s going on,” Bischoff also said. “It’s not natural. It’s not something that you can just go, ‘Sometimes, something happens.’ It’s concerning and hopefully we’re not seeing a pattern like we experienced back in the ’90s when it was common, I guess. Relatively speaking., it happened to often. Let’s put it that way. Let’s hope we’re not revisiting that. But, you know, somebody might want to take a look at that.”

Thompson compared the losses to the late 1990s and early 2000s, when professional wrestling experienced numerous premature deaths. Although Thompson cautioned against assuming anything suspicious had occurred, Bischoff suggested the situation deserved closer examination.

Bischoff also discussed the emotional toll that losing colleagues places on wrestlers who must continue performing.

“You still feel the emotion everybody else is feeling,” Bischoff said. “To have to go out and perform as a character and focus on what you’re doing in the ring for your own safety as well as the person you’re with, has got to be challenging.”