The information contained in this page is slightly outdated. Overall the concept is the same, but the numbers used in the examples are out of date. I'll revise this soon(ish).

Where numbers come from...

The system used on this site is the ELO rating system. For those that would like more information about ELO systems in general this page has a lot of information.

Here at mma-elo rating is determined in the following way:

- Each fighter starts with a 1500 rating
- Each fight a fighter's rating can increase/decrease by between 0 and 32 points
(note: The bigger the difference in rating between two fighters the more the higher rated fighter has to lose and the less they have to gain)

I'll try to keep the examples as simple as possible, but for those who don't even like to balance their checkbooks you might want to skip down (I'll let you know when it's safe).

****DANGER - MATH BELOW - DANGER****

Example #1 - Two fighters with equal rating

To make this a very simple case lets assume this is the first fight for both fighter A and fighter B. Due to it being their first fight, both fighters start off with a 1500 rating.

As you can see if fighter A wins they will gain 16 points and fighter B, with the loss, will lose 16 points. This means fighter A's rating would increase to 1516 and fighter B's would drop to 1484.

If fighter B were to be victorious then they would have the 1516 rating and fighter A would fall down to 1484.

Example #2 - Two fighters with different ratings

In this example, Fighter A starts off with a 1550 rating and Fighter B has a 1475 rating. We can see that if Fighter A wins they will gain 13 points and their rating will go up to 1563 (dropping Fighter B's rating to 1462).

If Fighter B were to win, then they would gain 19 points putting their rating to 1494 (dropping Fighter A down to 1531 in the process).

****NOW ENTERING A MATH-FREE ZONE****

First, welcome back to all who skipped over the examples. Now that we have a better understanding of how the system works I'd like to quickly cover a few of the positive and negative things about the system.

Potential issues with the system

One of the biggest issues people initially have when they see the fighter ratings is what one fighter's rating is relative to another fighter's rating. Thankfully, the system is very good about self correcting itself in this regard.

In the second example above (don't worry no math) the two fighters started off having a 75 point difference in rating. In the event that the lower rated (but allegedly 'better') fighter won the results would make it so there was only a 37 point difference in rating between the fighters. In just one fight the gap between these fighters was basically cut in half.

In fact, if these two fighters then immediately fought again and Fighter B again won the results would be Fighter B going up to a 1512 rating and Fighter A would fall to 1513. As you can see if a fighter's rating is "too high" or "too low" for whatever reason it will adjust very quickly.

Another issue some people have when they look at various fighter ratings is how some fighters achieved their ratings. For example, some fighters will have two, three, even ten times as many fights as others. Some see this as an issue because one fighter is building up their rating by fighting a lot of "weaker" opponents while another fighter is fighting less, but against "tougher" competition. In theory matchmakers should prevent such lopsided matches from occurring.

Most sports have potentially "skewed" stats in one form or another. For example, in American football one running back might have 1,500 yards rushing while another has only 1,400 yards, but the first running back carried the ball far more often. In baseball an example would be one batter having considerably more at bats, or having a much longer career.

The thing to keep in mind is exactly what stat you are looking at and what it is really telling you. If you are someone that values "strength of schedule" then it's important to consider the fighters rating relative to their wins/fights (stat coming soon).

If you are someone that falls into the "what have you done for me lately" category, then you should look over the one/three year mod numbers.

If you are more interested in the sport overall from a historical stand point then the "max" rating might be of interest to you as it shows the highest ratings of all-time.

Benefits of the system

One of the best things about mma-elo's system is the ability to remove all bias and subjectivity. A lot of other systems are built around criteria that is very subjective; This means the system has issues from the start.

For instance, some systems will give extra credit for beating "top 10" fighters and/or ignore fights against "cans". The problem with these systems is that there is no set way to determine who is a "can" and who is "top 10". Additionally, what if someone is #11 or "not quite a can"?

With this site's system we don't care if a fighter was #4 or #12, and we don't have to come to an agreement about someone's "can" status. Instead, we are able to simply say that Fighter A *IS* rated 1639 and Fighter B *IS* rated 1577. This takes the focus off of subjective and bias prone "rankings" and allows us to focus on a fighter's performance instead.

A second major benefit of the system is the ability to have standardized and predictable results. With a lot of other systems you have no way of knowing where fighters will be ranked following a certain performance.

Even if you initially agree with where fighters are ranked in some systems you still can't know for certain where fighters will be ranked following a fight. This is because one fighter's standing might be adjusted because their performance is perceived as "slightly more dominating" or any other number of unknown factors.

With how this site's system works if you know what two fighters are currently rated then you know what their ratings will be after a fight as well. This way everyone knows what is going to happen and no one is going to be surprised by one fighter suddenly jumping another or appearing in a top 25 list.