I went into this book expecting a semi-comprhensive history of professional wrestling, and what I got instead was a collection of semi-connected vignettes and mini-biographies of wrestlers who have died. This alone isn't really a problem. Something like this can work, but it needs to have some kind of consistent narrative strung through it to really keep me interested. And unfortunately, the narrative thread here seems to be: "Wrestlers die. Sometimes young, sometimes old, but they all die." It's not really that compelling. Shoemaker is a great writer, and some of the lesser known profiles are good reads, but do we really need a five page wikipedia-esque profile of mega stars like Andre the Giant and Randy Savage? There's nothing new there, and for anyone who has ever read a book about the professional wrestling industry, you will most likely find yourself skipping large chunks of this book as Shoemaker never really adds anything new or compelling to many of these alread well-trodden narratives. This book honestly feels more well suited for a coffee-table style encyclopedia of wrestling, and not a trade paper back marketed as a history of the business. If you haven't read Shoemaker before, do yourself a favor and skip this one and either wait for him to write an extended biography of a single wrestler or territory, or just go read through his archive of articles on Grantland . . . they are a much better starting point, unless you really want to read an entire book that amounts to little more than a collection of trivia.