Best martial arts

Boxing wins 68% of its duels and tops the Combat Sports ranking ahead of MMA, which holds second place with 1421 ELO points.

The gap between MMA and Muay Thai marks the sharpest split in the podium, with 49 ELO points separating second from third place. Boxing's dominance reflects the enduring appeal of the sport's simplicity and global reach, while MMA's strong showing confirms its rise as a modern favorite that blends multiple disciplines. Judo and Jiu-Jitsu round out the top 5, both securing 54% win rates despite different ELO scores of 1332 and 1308 respectively. At the opposite end, the ranking reveals the community's cooler reception to less mainstream disciplines: Systema sits at the bottom with 945 ELO points and a 33% win rate, just behind Pencak Silat at 968 points and Fencing at 1062 points. These traditional or niche combat sports struggle to capture the same enthusiasm as their more widely practiced counterparts, suggesting visibility and accessibility play major roles in shaping voter preferences.

This ranking draws from 2687 duels submitted by 40 players across 20 contenders, offering a snapshot of preferences within the combat sports world. The data was last updated on 12 October 2026. Head to the Combat Sports TopList on VAINKEURZ to cast your own votes and shape the ranking with your choices.

Updated on October 12, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →