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.
Rules
Fight mat
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.[2]
Winner-Stays-On System
The match begins with a bout between two fighters, one from each team. The winner fights the next fighter from the opposing team. If the bout ends in a draw, both fighters are removed and the next fighter from each team enters the mat to grapple. If the last fighter on a team loses their bout, that team loses. If a bout between both teams’ last fighters ends in a draw, whichever team had the fewest cumulative penalties throughout all of the bouts wins. If both teams have an equal number of penalties, the referees determine the winning team based on which fighter in the final bout was most aggressive.[2]
Weight
The total weight of all five fighters on a team must be below the weight class limit as measured one day before the event.[2]
Class name
Weight class limit (kg)
Men
Women
Regular
430 kg (950 lb)
280 kg (620 lb)
Light
360 kg (790 lb)
—
Time Limits
Each bout consists of one 8-minute round if the fighters are close in weight. If the difference in the fighters’ weights is more than 20 kilograms (44 lb) in the Regular class or 10 kilograms (22 lb) in the Lightweight class, the lighter fighter may choose between an 8- or 4-minute round.[2]
Quintet Fight Night 3 was a team grappling survival event held by Quintet on April 7, 2019, at the Arena Tachikawa Tachihi in Tokyo, Japan. It was the first Quintet event to feature women's grappling.
Quintet Ultra was a team grappling survival event held by Quintet on December 12, 2019, at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas, USA.[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.[clarify]
ReBOOT ~ QUINTET.4 (also known as Quintet 4) is a team grappling survival event to be held by Quintet on September 10, 2023, at the Yokohama Arena in Tokyo, Japan.[4] It is part of a larger collaborative event with K-1, known as "ReBOOT", and will be the first Quintet event after a two-year hiatus.[5]
Quintet 4 will be streamed on FloGrappling as part of a new streaming deal, making it the first event to not be streamed on UFC Fight Pass.[9] The event will also stream globally on DAZN.[10][11] The B-Team Bulls won the event.[12] Craig Jones was awarded 'Submission of the Year' at the JitsMagazine BJJ Awards 2023 for the Toehold he submitted Richie Martinez with in the final match.[13]
