How WAR Works

WAR asks a simple question: how many wins did this fighter add, compared to the kind of fighter a team could easily find to replace them?

A WAR of 2.0 means their rounds were worth about two extra wins for the team. An easily-replaced fighter, in exactly those same rounds, would have delivered two fewer.

WAR appears in the Advanced section of every fighter profile.

Three ingredients, all derived from the round-by-round results:

• Scoring rate. A fighter's net points per round (NP/R) — points scored minus points conceded, divided by rounds fought.
• The replacement bar. Line every fighter up by scoring rate and take the one a quarter of the way from the bottom. That is the bar. Score above it and you add value; below it and you cost your team.
• Points per win. The average margin a match is won by. This is what turns a pile of points into a number of wins.

Put it together: take how far above the bar a fighter scores, multiply by how many rounds they fought, then convert that into wins. In formula form: WAR = (NP/R − Replacement NP/R) × Rounds ÷ Avg Margin Per Match.

The same two numbers are used everywhere on the site. The yardstick does not change between the regular season and the playoffs — only a fighter's own scoring rate and round count do:

Both numbers are computed live from every decided match and every fighter's bout log — nothing is hand-entered. Disqualification rounds are excluded from fighter statkeeping (and therefore from WAR), though their points still count in match results.

• It doesn't know when points were scored. A garbage-time knockout counts the same as a match-winning one — that's what WPA is for.
• It doesn't adjust for opponent quality — beating the best fighter in the league counts the same as beating the worst. That's what Adjusted NPPR and Strength of Schedule are for.
• Fighters with few rounds can post noisy values, up or down.