Benjamin Satterley, better known as PAC, passed away Sunday, September 27th, 2026, at 40 years old.
The Butcher and PAC in a photo widely circulated by fans in the wake of the passing of both legends within one month.
Benjamin Satterley, better known in the wrestling community as PAC, passed away Sunday, 9/27/2026. The loss is monumental and comes far too closely on the heels of Andy “the Butcher” William’s death earlier this month. Writing about either man in the past tense still feels unnatural. The back-to-back losses have shaken the entire wrestling community. The Bastard is gone too soon. The Butcher is gone too soon. It’s devastating, and these losses are felt across the entertainment world. Our hearts are with those who knew them, both inside and, especially, outside of the ring.
PAC spent more than two decades honing one of contemporary wrestling’s most distinctive styles. From Dragon Gate and early NXT to WWE’s cruiserweight revival and the first years of AEW, PAC wrestled like gravity itself deserved to be punished.
Technically airtight and explosive off the ropes, PAC could leave the ground with the best high-flyers in the game, but what made him inimitable was how brutally every move landed. PAC’s style was remarkably dense: aerial speed, stiff striking, and punishing submission work packed into a compact but brutal frame.
AEW remembered him as a wrestler who mesmerized fans with “innovative high-flying moves and incredible in-ring ability,” but that still undersells his range. PAC could fly, certainly. He could wrestle technically and work brutally stiff. He could play a brilliant heel, and his straight man work was among the best in the business. PAC made Orange Cassidy jamming his hands in his pockets feel like a mortal insult demanding swift, brutal retribution.
PAC’s early matches with Kenny Omega were vital to setting up the kind of in-ring action AEW wanted to be known for. Fast, physical, and technically dense, those early matches saw long periods built around counters, endurance, and escalation rather than quick gimmicks or spectacle alone. PAC's first singles match against Cassidy, combined with their long-term rivalry, helped legitimize one of AEW’s riskiest characters as someone who could work in a serious wrestling match.
Before either of those, though, Adrian Neville’s NXT run produced one of the defining matches of that era against Sami Zayn. Benjamin Satterley, PAC/Neville, is mourned, missed, and in all ways incomparable. As a PAC fan and a human being, I’m more interested in what PAC gave us than how he left us. I spent all night Sunday rewatching old matches and promos, and so many of them remain spectacular. As heartbreaking and inspiring tributes roll in from fans, promoters, opponents, and the entire wrestling community, may all of us find some consolation in the legacy he left us.
Far more than a handful are worth revisiting, but these are good places to start.
Adrian Neville vs. Sami Zayn, NXT TakeOver: R Evolution, Dec. 11, 2014
Before PAC became AEW’s permanently furious bastard, Adrian Neville was helping define what NXT could be. His title match with Sami Zayn is memorable, in part, because of Zayn’s long pursuit of the NXT Championship, but Neville is fundamental to the payoff. Zayn had promised to leave NXT if he lost. Neville, meanwhile, spent the buildup proving his willingness to use his friend’s decency against him.
The match drags the whole feud into the ring rather than just relying on bigger and bigger spots. Neville knows Zayn well enough to cut off his dives and exploit his kindness when Zayn stops to do the decent thing and check on a fallen referee. Late in the match, Zayn gets hold of the championship belt and could easily use it as a weapon, but, of course, he refuses. Neville nearly steals the match with a rollup, but Zayn survives and finally wins the title the clean way, with the Helluva Kick.
This match feels like, perhaps, the best demonstration of just how complete Neville was pre-PAC. The aerial offense is there, of course. But this match is legendary for its impeccable character work and match psychology. It’s a classic good vs. evil trope: pushing the limits, the growing pressure to cross a line that cannot be uncrossed. When it's perfectly executed like this, it’s a reminder of why.
Neville and Zayn’s embrace after the match is more noteworthy now than ever. Neville’s heelish edge never completely erases the man underneath it. He’s willing to bend the rules to hold on to the title. But he recognizes that Zayn earned it. A rare moment of sincere resolution in the rivalry before Kevin Owens arrives to destroy it.
RevPro “High Stakes” 2/15/19 . Photo: Beyond Gorilla
PAC had just recently returned to wrestling after leaving WWE when RevPro put him opposite another one of Britain’s great aerial wrestlers in front of a sold-out York Hall. This wasn’t just two highflyers trying to out-flip each other, though. It was a full show.
PAC bullied Ospreay early, while Ospreay kept finding creative ways to escape and accelerate the match. By the closing stretch, they were trading Spanish flies, suplexes, and increasingly urgent counters. PAC eventually low-blowed Ospreay, climbed for the Black Arrow, and deliberately let the 30-minute clock expire rather than risk a loss.
The crowd demanded five more minutes. PAC left—extremely PAC.
PAC’s post-WWE return also saw him back in Dragon Gate, where he’d already spent years developing prior to becoming a major American star. By Dead or Alive, PAC was the Open the Dream Gate Champion. Dragon Kid made an ideal opponent: compact, unbelievably quick, and easily able to turn a title match into an aerial sprint.
PAC answered Dragon Kid’s springboard hurricanranas and moonsaults with power, including a brutal sequence of backbreakers, powerbombs, and a middle-rope Tombstone before eventually retaining with the Black Arrow. This is an exemplary match for looking at what separated PAC from those who were simply spectacular in the air: when PAC came down, everything looked landed and landed hard.
PAC vs. Kenny Omega, AEW All Out, Aug. 31, 2019
PAC’s AEW debut came on short notice after Jon Moxley was pulled from the show with an MRSA infection. Instead of easing him in, AEW put him opposite Kenny Omega in their first-ever singles meeting, billed by AEW as a dream match. These two faced off in plenty of outstanding matches, but what makes this one a “best of” is how jjust quickly these two icons establish their contrast.
Omega repeatedly tries to accelerate; PAC repeatedly cuts him off, matches him in the air, and then turns the match closer and more physical. The exchanges get shorter and harder as the match progresses, with PAC using his brute force and submissions to keep dragging Omega out of the match he so clearly wants to wrestle.
Maybe most importantly, PAC doesn’t arrive as a showcase opponent who’s only there to make Omega look good. He wins cleanly and decisively, trapping Omega in the Brutalizer until he passes out. On one of AEW’s biggest early shows, PAC walked in as a replacement and left looking like someone who could plausibly beat anybody on the roster.
Kenny Omega vs. PAC, 30-Minute Iron Man Match, AEW Dynamite, Feb. 26, 2020
Probably the essential PAC-Omega match. Their rubber match went the full 30 minutes, then into sudden-death overtime, before Omega won 2-1.
PAC is especially spellbinding in this one because he keeps changing the shape of the match. He matches Omega’s speed, overpowers him, then shuts the pace down with the Brutalizer. Omega has to adjust constantly. By overtime, both men look like they're just trying to survive.
More than almost any early Dynamite match, this one showcased what AEW wanted its television main events to be: long, demanding, and technically ambitious. This is easily one of the fundamentals of AEW’s strategy for proving it could headline a pay-per-view.
Just three days later, PAC went from an exhausting Iron Man match to being the ideal fuming straight man for Orange Cassidy’s first AEW singles match. Cassidy’s hands-in-the-pockets routine could easily have floundered, but it works largely because PAC so convincingly reacts to it like it’s a personal insult to wrestling itself. And then they actually wrestle. PAC wins with the Brutalizer, but this match's importance in establishing Cassidy as a legitimate talent in the AEW stable can’t be overlooked, largely because of PAC's ability to sell.
Kenny Omega vs. PAC vs. Orange Cassidy, AEW Double or Nothing, May 30, 2021
PAC vs Kenny Omega vs Orange Cassidy at Double or Nothing
The two defining early PAC rivalries collide. Omega defended the AEW World Championship against PAC and Cassidy in a frantic three-way that consistently kept even the most cynical fan believing either challenger might steal the title.
PAC vs. Andrade El Idolo, AEW Rampage, Sept. 10, 2021
Pure, distilled, PAC. Violent and deliciously excessive, both men repeatedly transform spectacular offense into a match that feels convincingly dangerous. Andrade stomps PAC from the ropes to the floor; PAC answers with a top-rope moonsault, a 450 splash, and, of course, ultimately the Brutalizer. These wrestlers’ styles fit like puzzle pieces in this one. Both can wrestle at high speed and in the air, but neither handles athleticism as decoration. Everything lands hard.
Admittedly, the finish is a bit of a blemish. Chavo Guerrero covertly smacks PAC with an iPad while the referee is distracted, allowing Andrade to steal the pin. Even Andrade rejects the assist afterward, decking Chavo once he learns what happened. The interference keeps it from being a definitive finish. Still, the match itself is an excellent snapshot of PAC at his most versatile: fast enough to match Andrade move for move, strong enough to make the exchanges physical, and dangerous from almost anywhere in the ring.
Ospreay kicking PAC at All Out
Five years after their RevPro meeting, PAC and Ospreay finally got another singles match. With Ospreay’s International Championship on the line, the rematch had none of the exploratory feel of 2019. The speed was still a staple, but PAC transformed almost every exchange into a test of how much punishment Ospreay could absorb. PAC German-suplexed Ospreay on the apron, dropped him with a poison rana there, repeatedly trapped him in the Brutalizer, and just kept finding ways to counter Ospreay’s speed with something violent. Osmike vbailey and opac preay survived the Brutalizer and multiple poison ranas, while PAC later kicked out after taking the Hidden Blade. Ospreay finally put him away with a Styles Clash followed by another Hidden Blade. Even AEW’s commentary abandoned restraint: Tony Schiavone called it “an all-timer.”
PAC vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey, AEW Collision, Nov. 27, 2025
High-flyer’s Mike “Speedball” Bailey and PAC
The 2025 Continental Classic eliminated any Death Riders interference and returned PAC to straight singles wrestling against one of the company’s fastest and most athletic opponents, Mike Bailey. Two wrestlers with enormous kicking and aerial arsenals raced each other to the next opening. Bailey landed a poison rana and a barrage of kicks late but missed the Ultima Weapon; PAC answered with a lariat and immediately cinched in the Brutalizer until Bailey went out and the referee stopped the match.
More than just a great match, it proved that PAC still belonged in AEW’s top-level singles mix. PAC could still dictate the match, finish decisively, and look perfectly at home in a tournament built around elite in-ring wrestling. It’s less a career-defining classic than proof that, even later in his run, PAC remained elite.
PAC’s final match came only a day before AEW announced his death. Challenging Andrade for the National Championship, PAC was still doing what defined him for two decades: a springboard cutter, a huge moonsault to the floor, a 450 splash, an avalanche hurricanrana, and the Brutalizer. Andrade finally escaped by rolling through the submission and pinning PAC. It doesn’t need to be retroactively declared one of his greatest matches to belong on a retrospective. The significance is simpler and sadder: PAC’s final match looked like a PAC match. There was no farewell tour and no visible winding down.
PAC had incredible range. He could work Omega’s long-form epics, play furious straight man to Orange Cassidy’s absurdity, and keep pace with Ospreay and Bailey. He made matches feel like a fight just by changing the pressure. Across promotions and eras, the constants were precision, speed, and an almost hostile physicality. What makes revisiting them harder now is that there is no graceful decline to trace, no obvious final chapter. There was no parting version of PAC. There was only PAC — until suddenly there wasn’t. And we aren’t sure what to do with that besides appreciating everything he gave us.
Jenny Catlin is a writer from the Square States, covering racing, pop culture, professional wrestling, country and western, and glam metal music, obsession, sex, pornography, the real working class, indie press, and other obsessions. An award-winning essayist, she is a contributing writer at The Athletic and Denver-based Denverse Magazine. Find her on Substack and Instagram.
