2006 was a hell of a year. Revenues slowly dried up in some areas and exploded in others. TNA looked like it was about to burst at times and at times simply limped along providing great questions and no answered. There were two movies with wrestlers as stars. One made money and one nearly broke even, which is a rare thing. The year was strong at times, weak at others.

The WWE had a lot of problems, with the biggest being injuries costing them many of their big stars for long periods of time. From Big Show to Rey Mysterio, you can’t argue that this has been the biggest year for injuries since about five years ago, when they toned down the style a good deal.

The ECW experiment failed, but it did bring CM Punk to a real audience. It also showed us that Ariel, aka Shelly Martinez, can be awesome.

As always, we lost some of the boys. While we were still reeling from the loss of Eddy at the start of the year, we lost The Spoiler last week, Victor Quinones, The Crusher, Johnny Grunge, Bob Orton Sr. and The Earthquake John Tenta.

So, here’s the awards, starting with a special one

More important than the Golden Globes.

The Trish Stratus Woman Wrestler of the Year
(Last Year’s Winner: Trish Stratus)- Trish Stratus.
This is the last year she’ll be around so we’re naming the award after her. She was a star and went out on top and what’s amazing is that she got votes in the Fanboy Planet Readers' Awards as well. She got a classy send-off that we may never see again. Pretty spectacular. Second goes to Mickie James and third to Victoria, almost entirely for the last three weeks.

Best on Interviews
(Last Year’s Winner: Jim Mitchell)- Edge
This wasn’t a great year for Mic work, but Edge stayed over as a heel. There’s no question that Cena’s right up there, too. The funny thing is without the interviews, either of those guys would still be as over as they are, though they were certainly built by the talking they did over the last couple of years. I’d say that Jim Mitchell is third.

Tag Team of the Year
(Last Year’s Winner: Team Canada)- KENTA and Marifuji
They didn’t team up much, but there wasn’t a single team anywhere that came close to the level of those two guys in the three or four matches they had. Second would be London and Kendrick for the great matches they’ve been having of late despite being somewhat depushed. America’s Most Wanted is third.

The Lou Thesz Award For Good Wrestling
(Last Year: Shawn Michaels and Christopher Daniels)- KENTA
The kid’s incredible. Three of the five best matches of the year in my opinion all had KENTA in them. True, his tag partner was in two of them, but still, he’s incredible and his match with Bryan Danielson, an easy second, was amazing. Joe vs. Angle II takes third. Danielson would be the runner up for the award, followed by Chris Daniels.

Feud of theYear- Edge vs. Cena.
There’s no question that this award goes to them because they carried the WWE for most of the year. Still, there was question as to whether Samoa Joe vs. Angle would measure up, and it came close. I’d love to say that Angle-Joe was better, but realistically, feuds are about bringing in money and Edge-Cena did good and though Joe-Angle did far better than most TNA, the second match dried up a good deal.

Show of the Year
(Last Year’s Winner: ECW One Night Only)- Ring of Honor’s Glory by Honor
This show had everything. There was the return of Bruno Sanmartino to NYC, the Kenta-Danielson match that you’ll hear more about in a minute and the first ever defense of the NOAH title in the US. There was so much to this show and everyone says it’s one of the best ever. I’d put WrestleMania right beneath it.

Match of the Year
(Last Year's Winner: Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle at WrestleMania)-
KENTA vs. Marufuji for the GHC title in Tokyo.
I’ll say this, there are five matches that I’ve loved and never had another that felt like it belonged. This was the first match since 1997 to join that list. Easily the stiffest match you’ll ever see from two jr. heavies. They just went all out, and this is after their great match from last year. Next would be KENTA vs. Bryan Danielson which was also top-notch and only lacked the feel that having a match that’ll redefine wrestling’s Main Event structure can provide. The Joe vs. Angle II match is up there, as is KENTA/Marufuji vs. Morishima/Rikio match.

More important than the Golden Globes.

Wrestler of the Year
(Last Year’s Winner: Shawn Michaels)- Edge.
No question Edge had a better year than anyone. He drew well on top, he dragged a great series of matches out of John Cena and he talked better than anyone. He made a heel who acts like a heel back into a regular heel again. It’s so nice to see. His year would have been better if he’d held the belt for another feud, but as it stands, he was Number One. Cena had a great year too, but it was obvious why their series worked and that was Edge. Samoa Joe is third and he would have been even higher if he had been given the ball to run with. He’s TNA’s big thing right now, and though they constantly bring in ‘names’ to try and draw, the only reason they get ratings is match quality and that’s provided by Samoa Joe in spades.

The Readers' Awards
This year, I got 44 votes for Fanboy Planet’s Favorite Wrestler, but only 41 for the other 2 catagories. Go figure.

Best Face- RVD
I was shocked by this one. With 18 votes, RVD won it, followed by 10 for John Cena and 7 for AJ Styles. The other votes were split one each for Trish Stratus, Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Kurt Angle, Samoa Joe and Jeff Hardy. This one should have been much closer, and really, Cena’s a big draw and RVD, while popular, has never really broken through as a money-making face.

Best Heel- Edge
No question here. 25 full votes went to Edge, while four others went to Randy Orton. Booker got 2, as did Finlay, Samoa Joe, Angle and Big Show. Lita got one, as did Victoria. There were a lot of folks I thought would get votes (Johnny Nitro, Umaga, Paul Heyman) who got nothing.