FMW 9th Anniversary Show: Entertainment Wrestling Live was the first professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW). The event took place on April 30, 1998, at the Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium in Yokohama, Japan. This was the first FMW event to be broadcast on pay-per-view via DirecTV. The event commemorated the ninth anniversary of FMW and was the first to be broadcast on pay-per-view.
There were two main event matches on the card. In the first main event, Mr. Gannosuke defended the FMW Double Championship (the unification of the FMW Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship and the FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship) against Hayabusa, who earned the title shot by winning a tournament. Hayabusa defeated Gannosuke to win the title. The second main event on the card featured Kodo Fuyuki defeating Atsushi Onita, the leader of ZEN in a match which stipulated that if Onita lost then ZEN must disband.
Background
Production
FMW signed a deal with the American direct broadcast satellite provider DirecTV to begin producing monthly pay-per-view events at the time when DirecTV had just begun launching in Japan. As per deal, DirecTV would pay FMW around $600,000 annually to show FMW once a month on pay-per-view as their television outlet instead of Samurai TV. This led FMW owner Shoichi Arai to broadcast the 9th Anniversary Show on April 30, 1998, on pay-per-view and named it Entertainment Wrestling Live.
Storylines
Hayabusa and Mr. Gannosuke had been feuding with each other since January 5, 1997, when Gannosuke returned to FMW to confront Hayabusa for not leaving FMW with him for IWA Japan. Hayabusa defeated Gannosuke in a hair vs. hair match at the 8th Anniversary Show and the two battled with each other in many matches throughout the year. On January 6, 1998, Gannosuke defeated Masato Tanaka to win the unified Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship and the Independent Heavyweight Championship. Following Gannosuke's title win, an eight-man single elimination tournament was set up in March to determine the #1 contender for the title at Entertainment Wrestling Live which included former champion Tanaka, Hayabusa, The Gladiator, Yukihiro Kanemura, Jado, Hisakatsu Oya, Koji Nakagawa and Tetsuhiro Kuroda. Hayabusa defeated Gladiator in the final of the tournament on March 17 to win the tournament and earn the title match with Gannosuke. On March 29, Gannosuke and Kanemura lost the Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship to Kodo Fuyuki and Hido. On April 17, a tag team gauntlet took place to determine the #1 contenders for the Brass Knuckles Tag Team Championship, which was won by Hayabusa and Tanaka by defeating Gannosuke and Kanemura and then they subsequently defeated tag team champions Kodo Fuyuki and Hido to win the title. On April 21, Hayabusa's friend Jinsei Shinzaki announced that he would leave FMW after Entertainment Wrestling Live and he defeated Gannosuke in a non-title match to end their long running feud. On April 26, Gannosuke cost Hayabusa and Shinzaki, a tag team match against Jado and Yukihiro Kanemura by blowing fire at Hayabusa as their last confrontation before their match.
Fuyuki-Gun (Fuyuki, Jado and Gedo) debuted in FMW on February 19, 1997, and he immediately began a rivalry with the former FMW owner Atsushi Onita by insulting him backstage after Onita had been assaulted by Funk Masters of Wrestling. This began a feud between Fuyuki-Gun and Onita's group ZEN. ZEN crippled by the end of the year after its key members Mr. Gannosuke, Yukihiro Kanemura and Hido turned on Onita after Onita was pinned by Hayabusa in a WarGames match on December 22. Gannosuke and his allies merged with Fuyuki-Gun to form a new group Team No Respect to feud with ZEN as all of them were jealous of Onita pushing himself as a main eventer at the expense of the entire FMW roster. On March 17, 1998, Fuyuki and Gedo defeated Koji Nakagawa and Tetsuhiro Kuroda in a tag team match, where Fuyuki mocked Onita by using Onita's "Wild Thing" theme song and Onita's finishing move Thunder Fire Powerbomb on Nakagawa, thus setting up his match with Onita at Entertainment Wrestling Live. Another added stipulation into the match due to TNR's influence was that Onita must disband ZEN if he lost the match.