Death of the Territories

A great, if somewhat depressing, read, I found this book entertaining in the same way that someone would find a book on war entertaining, getting invested in the small victories and key locations that played a part in the history of the war of the territories in wrestling, even as I knew how the story ends.

Tim Hornbaker is simply the best when it comes to writing about wrestling history. Sure, sometimes it feels like we are spending pages comparing audience numbers in various cities with various promotions but that???s part of the narrative. He pretty much tackles all the major territories during this time and how eventually they ran out of steam. This book admittedly led me to wanting deeper dives in things like the AWA and how they weren???t able to leverage the ESPN deal or how Portland and Florida seemed to just get by for so dang long. Not that I wanted them from this book, as this takes out the far and just gives you the goods.