UFC Fight Night 69 results: Noad Lahat tops Niklas Backstrom via majority decision

Noad Lahat

BERLIN – Niklas Backstrom fought well and earned the victory over Noad Lahat on the scorecards of many MMA fans and media members, but he didn’t take the scorecards that mattered most as he came up on the wrong end of a majority decision.

The featherweight bout was part of the preliminary card of today’s UFC Fight Night 69 event at O2 World Berlin in Germany’s capital city. It streamed on UFC Fight Pass.

After an opening minute to Round 1 that saw the fighters circle and little more, it was Lahat (9-1 MMA, 2-1 UFC) who scored a takedown and looked to control the long limbs or Backstrom (8-2 MMA, 1-2 UFC). A Backstrom gogoplata attempt turned into an omoplata that was used to sweep Lahat.

Backstrom immediately worked to improve his position and was able to take Lahat’s back and lock in a body triangle. Lahat defended well against the submission attempts but still ended the round defending against an armbar.

Lahat was far less interested in working for takedown in Round 2. After defending against a takedown attempt, Lahat opened up with a series of big strikes that had his foe reeling.

A damaged Backstrom, bleeding from the forehead, shot in for a desperation takedown only to end up mounted by Lahat, who poured on strikes but was unable to get the stoppage before Round 2 came to a close.

The two fatigued featherweights came out for the final frame looking to exploit an advantage after likely splitting the first two rounds. The action hit the floor once again with the two men exchanging leg-lock attempts before Backstrom moved to top position and closed out Round 3 with a ground attack that kept Lahat on the defensive to the final horn.

With the fight going to the judges’ scorecards, it seemed Backstrom had edged out the victory with a strong last round. Unfortunately for the Swede, that’s not how it played out with the official cards reading a surprising 28-28, 29-28 and 29-28, and awarding Lahat the victory by majority decision.

Lahat entered the fight off a win over Steven Siler at UFC on FOX 12. Prior to the victory, Lahat suffered his first professional loss when he was knocked out by a Godofredo Pepey flying knee at UFC Fight Night 38.

Backstrom could relate to recently tasting defeat for the first time after being knocked out by Mike Wilkinson at UFC Fight Night 53.

Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 69 results include:

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 69, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

(MMAjunkie’s Matt Erickson contributed to this report on site in Berlin.)