Death of the Territories is a Game Mod for Total Extreme Wrestling, released in 2004 and popular ever since.
It is set in 1983, right before the World Wrestling Federation's period of national expansion, the mod presents a stylized version of the 1980s professional wrestling scene, changing some details to account for the writer's vision of what the scene was.
This mod provides examples of:
- Artistic License – History: The author stylized the scenario somewhat, including a few then-deceased wrestlers who had died in the previous year, as well as making a few slight changes to historical rosters and title histories.
- Bears Are Bad News Ted, the wrestling bear, is included as a worker you can hire. Not surpringly, he has a complete "F" in microphone skills.
- The Cameo: Several of the celebrities that were a part of the 80s wrestling scene are included as well, not just Kaufman and Lauper.
- Composite Character: Central States Wrestling and Heart of America Sports Attractions are combined into a singular promotion, under the Central States banner.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The house show loops of the wrestling promotions (where they wrestle basically the same show various times per week) is condensed into a single weekly show.
- Similarly Titled Works: A book covering the same time period, with the same name, was released in 2018.
- Title Drop: "Who will be the first to cause ... The Death of the Territories" is part of the brief scenario description.
- Vestigial Empire: The National Wrestling Alliance, due to gameplay limitations, is not shown as a united network of promotions. The World-level titles are fully exclusive to one company and cannot be defended by a travelling champion. Ironically, this is somewhat of a Truth in Television for the latter days on the NWA.
- Young Future Famous People: Triple H (as Paul Levesque), Kevin Nash, The Undertaker (as Mark Callous, although he would historically debut in 1988) and GLOW are included, among others. GLOW is in there likely to give its fans a women's wrestling league to start.
