Final Fight Championship returns to Linz, Austria for the second time to hold its 26th event at TipsArena. The official press conference and weigh in took place Thursday with FFC President Orsat Zovko, matchmaker Marko Petrak and main stars: Dion Starin and Darko Stošić who are to headline the MMA part of the event and kickboxers Shkodran Veseli and Kristijan Franjić.

After the participants introduced themselves, the FFC President Orsat Zovko opened the press conference:

„I am very happy we returned to Linz. I have to admit we feel almost like home here. This upcoming event is one of the biggest FFC events when it comes to fight card and you will also see how much we improved the production since last year. Tomorrow we will see three title bouts and I’m really looking forwards to this upcoming show.“

The main MMA event will be the one between two heavyweights – FFC champ Dion Staring and Serbia’s young talent Darko Stošić. This match was originally to take place at FFC 25 in Springfield, Massachussett, but it was canceled due to Staring’s injury.

„I could not do my preps well because of the injuries I sustained in the previous match, so we just decided to postpone the whole thing. Now I did a good camp and preps and I am ready for another war and spectacle,“ said Staring.

After the Dutch fighter made the statement, Darko Stošić took the microphone and his plans.

“As I already said, Staring did me a favor when he canceled the match in the US. It was a long trip and my first visit to the States. Now I’m definitely prepared better, I did a great camp in Holland where I trained with best UFC fighters as well as some other fighters from the Netherlands. I also feel great when it comes to conditioning. Dion never said anything bad about me and I will say nothing bad about him. I respect him as an older fighter. He fought more matches and he has experience with top fighters. I’m honored to fight him, but he has this belt which means so much to me. I am ready. You can expect  war and crowning of the new champ. This is inevitabe, new people come, old people go. I will be the new champ and I wish him all the best in the rest of his career,“ said Stošić apologizing for perhaps not finding the right words since this was his first press conference.

FFC President Orsat Zovko concluded the press conference adding that this was FFC’s first European event after two successful events in the US where FFC was broadcasted on CBS Sports. He also revealed that FFC has big plans for 2017 and sicx upcoming events both in the US and Europe.

„I believe we are the only promotion alongside with UFC, Bellator and Glory that has events both in Europe and America, which means we slowly became one of the top fighting sports promotions, and this is a tremendous success for us,“ concluded Zovko and added that FFC still plans to grow.

FFC 26 is to take place this Friday, September 23, at 8 PM CET at TipsArena Linz.