Being that it's the end of 1989, the wrestling community gave out the "End of Year Awards" at a banquet in Fort Worth Texas. The banquet was attended by many wrestlers and promoters from all over the world including some NWA wrestlers along with NWA head booker, Greg Moe.
The NWA/WCW's October PPV, Halloween Havoc was voted as the years "Show of the Year." The attendance of the show was posted as just over 33,000, so it wasn't the NWA's highest attended PPV, but it did receive the highest rating, posting a A* for the overall show by wrestling writers. The main event for Havoc was Ric Flair defeating Bret Hart in a cage for the NWA Heavyweight Championship.
According to the votes counted, the "Match of the Year" belonged to All Japan's Genichiro Tenryu and Toshiaki Kawada back in one of their October matches that were receiving big pops from crowds in Japan all fall long.
The "Veteran of the Year" was none other than Andre the Giant who has been splitting time between the WWF and AJPW. He's been a huge draw for both promotions and some of his matches with WWF superstar Hulk Hogan have made a lot of covers for many wrestling publications. Greg Moe is hoping that with his working agreement he has with AJPW, he can talk them into letting Andre come over and do a few shows for the NWA.
The big news on the night other than winning the "Show of the Year" award was Ric Flair winning the "Wrestler of the Year" award. It was said the voting wasn't even close. His two matches with Bret Hart toward the end of the year were said to be instant classics and Greg Moe knows that there will be at least one more at "SlamBoree" in the middle of this month.
As they listed "The Power 100" to the banquet, Greg Moe's face beamed with pride as the NWA has 4 of the top 5 wrestlers in Ric Flair, Bret Hart, Jerry Lawler and Tully Blanchard. With Lawler recently signing on for 2 years, things should only get better in 1990. There were reports that out in the lobby of the banquet after the Top 100 were read, that WWF owner, Vince McMahon and NWA's head booker, Greg Moe got into a shoving match that had to be broken up by hotel security.
On a side note for this same week, Greg Moe did receive one set back as Davey Boy Smith and the Dynamite Kid both turned him down when offered what would have been huge contracts. Both wrestlers have been tearing up Canada with Calgary Stampede Wrestling, working for Stu Hart. Greg was hoping that since both Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart already worked for the NWA, they could talk the two "British Bulldogs" to come work for the NWA. However, it looks like they are going to stay loyal to Stu Hart, with Davey working some shows for the WWF.
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