[1] Sakuraba developed Quintet with former UFC champion Josh Barnett.

In July 2017, while in Las Vegas, Sakuraba pitched the concept of Quintet to Ant Evans, the content officer for UFC Fight Pass.

Evans worked with Sakuraba to further develop the concept before ultimately signing Quintet to a long-term deal with UFC Fight Pass.

In Quintet, bouts take place on a 12-meter by 12-meter (39 ft) square wrestling mat with no line boundaries.

If the fighters move too close to the edge of the mat, the referee stops the bout and restarts it in a safe area of the mat with the fighters assuming the same positions they were in when the bout was stopped.

[3] This event was based around teams representing four MMA promotions: the UFC, Pride Fighting Championships, Strikeforce, and World Extreme Cagefighting.

Participants were selected based on how closely linked their careers were to those promotions.

[6] However, Team New Wave Jiu Jitsu withdrew from the event on July 28, 2023.