Methodology
How We Rate MMA Fighters
Every fighter card in 30-0 carries six attributes and an overall rating, built from public records, results and era context. No video game data, no ratings provider. Here is how 399 cards got their numbers, and why some will annoy you.
A rating is an argument, not a measurement
There is no lab test for a chin. Nobody has a dynamometer reading for Fedor's right hand or a spreadsheet cell for fight IQ, and anyone who tells you their MMA ratings are objective is selling something. So here is the honest version: a fighter rating is a structured argument. What makes it worth anything is that the structure is consistent across all 399 cards, the sources are public, and the argument is accountable to an engine that runs it a hundred thousand times and publishes the results.
The inputs are public: records, results, methods of victory, level of opposition, and the era the run happened in. Nothing else. No video game numbers, ours or anyone else's, and no third-party ratings provider. 30-0 is an independent fan project and the ratings are its editorial spine, which is exactly why we would rather show the working than hide behind false precision.
The six attributes on every MMA fighter card
Every card carries the same six numbers, and each one does a specific job when the engine runs a fight. Here is the whole card, labelled:
| Attribute | What it measures | What it does in a fight |
|---|---|---|
| Striking | Volume, technique, distance control | The base of round-to-round advantage |
| Power | The one-shot threat | Keeps a puncher's chance alive in every fight; 90+ power against a chin of 80 or less adds a finishing edge |
| Grappling | Takedowns, control, submission offence | A double-digit edge over the opponent's submission defence swings the fight hard |
| Sub defence | Surviving the mats | Cancels grapplers; quietly decides hidden-mode drafts |
| Chin | Durability under fire | Weak chins get found by power, and chins age before everything else |
| Cardio | Rounds three, four and five | Big gaps swing fights late; high-cardio finishers take you into deep water and finish you there |
Those effects are not flavour text. The two-point swing for a grappling mismatch, the extra point and a half when heavy hands meet a soft chin, the smaller nudge for a cardio gap: those are the actual modifiers in the engine. And the puncher's floor means no fight in 30-0 is ever entirely safe. If you have ever lost a 97 to an 80 with heavy hands, the floor is what got you.
The tier system: 43 legends, 125 traps
Overall ratings run from 68 to 97, and the spread is deliberate. Here is every card in the game by rating:
Those ratings sort into four tiers, and the shape of the pyramid is the point:
The trap tier is the game's favourite lie. 125 cards wearing famous names whose rated run can no longer cash the reputation: the aging icon, the glass cannon, the one-trick submission artist. In Rookie mode the ratings are printed on the card and traps are harmless. In Fight Night and Dagestan the numbers are hidden, every card looks equally tempting, and your MMA knowledge is the only thing standing between you and drafting the 2007 version of a 2004 great.
Era cards: we rate the run, not the career
This is the part nobody else does, and the part we would defend last if we had to give everything else up. A career is not one fighter. 33 of the 399 names appear more than once, because the version of a fighter you get matters more than the name on the card.
Look at what actually changed. The power is nearly intact, 93 down to 88, which is why the 2007 card still knocks people out in the game. The chin is what left: 89 to 70, and with it the overall, 92 to 77, legend to trap. The engine does not know about the mohawk. It knows the chin went, because the results said so.
Frankie Edgar is the same story stretched across a whole career: a 90 at lightweight, an 89 at featherweight, and a 79 at bantamweight, the cut too far. And it runs the other way, too. Featherweight Charles Oliveira, 2010 to 2015, is an 82 trap. The 2020 lightweight version is a 92. We do not do redemption arcs. We print both chapters and let you draft the wrong one.
The house rules
Under the data sits a set of editorial priors. We would rather list them than pretend they do not exist:
- Proven violence beats hype. A highlight reel against gatekeepers is worth less than ugly wins over killers.
- Prospects get tempered. The card reflects what happened, not what might.
- Famous names get their flowers, and then they get the number their run actually earned.
- Every division needs traps. Temptation is a game mechanic, and it only works if the bait is real.
Disclosed bias beats hidden bias. If you think a call is wrong, the odds are decent that we argued about it too.
Every number on this site is an argument I am prepared to have, and some have already moved because somebody made a better case than mine. That is the deal. The one rule is that you cannot argue a card up just because you loved the fighter. I loved 2007 Chuck. The card is still a 77.
How the ratings get tested
A rating set can look sensible on paper and play broken. So every change goes back through the engine: 100,000 simulated careers, checking that a perfect 30-0 stays close to a 1-in-100 event, that the median unbeaten streak holds around 14, and that the difficulty curve keeps its shape. The full numbers are in our study on whether 30-0 is possible at all. When a card moves, the Daily Challenge's ceiling gets recomputed with it, because the Daily's best-possible record is fixed by the maths the moment the day's draft is set.
The last test is you. When a number is wrong, the fastest route to getting it changed is the better argument: the opponent we underweighted, the era context we misread. The ratings are the argument. The draft is where you make yours.