Evolve was founded in 2009 by Dragon Gate USA (DGUSA) booker Gabe Sapolsky, Full Impact Pro (FIP) owner Sal Hamaoui and independent wrestler Davey Richards and held its first event on January 16, 2010.
[7] The Open the United Gate Championship continued being defended at Evolve shows until May 30, 2015, when reigning champions Johnny Gargano and Rich Swann retired the title and asked for a new Evolve tag team title to be created in its place.
[8] On September 22, Evolve announced that it would start putting more emphasis on the promotion's tag team division and would create the new title, if the experiment turned out successful.
[1] The first three teams participating in the tournament were revealed in the press release announcing the creation of the title.
[12] Timothy Thatcher was originally announced for the tournament, but he was forced to pull out due to a staph infection and was replaced by Sami Callihan.