When Brian Custer landed what, for most, would be a career-defining gig with ESPN in 2021, it was a major milestone in his broadcasting career, but he did have one point regarding life outside of the worldwide leader that was non-negotiable.

He was going to keep his job as the host for Showtime Championship Boxing. 

“To me, boxing is the theater of life,” said Custer. “We're all in the ring and a lot of times it’s can we make the adjustments? Can we take the hits, and can we succeed? We're going to get knocked down. Are you going to get back up? I love it. I love it because this sport parallels life and there's nothing better. I have so much respect for the athletes, and I will do this sport until I die because I love it so much. And yeah, trust me, I love everything about working at the worldwide leader, but I want to make sure that I always complement it with the sweet science, as well.”

ESPN was all-in on Custer keeping his boxing gig, and as he mixed fight nights with nights hosting SportsCenter or calling college sports, everything was running like a well-oiled machine. 

Until it wasn’t. Late last year, Showtime got out of the boxing business, and Custer lost a job he loved through no fault of his own. But he wouldn’t sit idle for long. In fact, he wasn’t sitting idle at all – all that was missing was boxing – and in early December it was announced that Premier Boxing Champions was signing a deal with Amazon Prime to televise their bouts. Then the rumblings started about who would be the broadcast team for the new venture, and just like Michael Corleone said in the third installment of The Godfather series, “Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in.”

“Well, I'd like to say I don't think I ever left,” laughed Custer. “Obviously it was unfortunate with Showtime Sports that Paramount decided to close that down, but I always felt like we would definitely be back and doing what we were passionate about and what we love.”

On Saturday, Custer will be resuming hosting duties for the card featuring Tim Tszyu’s bout against Sebastian Fundora, with Mauro Ranallo, Abner Mares, Joe Goossen, Claudia Trejos and Jordan Plant also on board for the new platform. And with all those names familiar to fight fans, there’s obviously a desire to not fix what ain’t broken, while also wanting to bring in fresh viewers. So expect a mix of old and new, this weekend and beyond.

“I felt like Showtime Championship Boxing was the standard, without question,” said Custer. “I think Amazon feels as if, yes, we want do something different, and it's a different medium. We're going to have a whole vastly different audience, and I think we want to cater to that audience and be different. And I think that's their mantra. I don't think they want to be like Showtime. And so, I think they look at it that way; that this is something fresh, something new, and we want to produce it as such. Thus, the reason why, there's a few of us from Showtime that'll be on the broadcast, but not all of us, and that's because they wanted a new look, a new cast, and I think that you'll see that the production will be different from what you've seen from Showtime Championship Boxing.”

But if Showtime set the standard, Custer wants the new squad to raise the bar. It’s what the 53-year-old is always looking to do, and why he’s earned respect around the sporting world for his work. That includes his hit podcast, “The Last Stand with Brian Custer,” which was also an unfortunate casualty of Showtime leaving the boxing business. But after a brief hiatus, Custer is planning a comeback in 2024 for that as well. 

“The next thing that I'm working on is finding a good production company to help produce it and bring back good content,” Custer said. “We got lucky that Showtime saw the value in it and they really invested a lot in the production, and I wanted to stay at that kind of high quality. A lot of fighters have contacted me about ‘When can I get on?’ And, so yeah, that's what I'm working on now, talking to a few production companies and really trying to get this thing back up and rolling again.”

That’s good news for fight fans beyond Custer returning to the host’s desk because on “The Last Stand,” they got an in-depth look at some of the most intriguing personalities in the game, including Deontay Wilder, Gervonta Davis, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Errol Spence Jr. and “Sugar” Ray Leonard. 

“I think we quickly established ourselves as the best boxing podcast out there,” he said. “I really was proud of the fact that guys wanted to come on and speak freely – something that they don't do with others, and I love that. And then it became even better when athletes from different sports said, ‘I want to come on, too.’ So whether it was Micah Parsons or Damian Lillard, guys came on like, ‘Hey man, I love boxing, but I want to talk about other stuff, too.’ So yeah, without question, I'm looking to really get this back going and talk boxing, and other things, as well.”

The reason why Custer got the A-list guests and got them to open up is simple – he’s a pro, and he cares about being fair. That doesn’t mean shying away from the tough questions – it means giving the subject a chance to address them and give their side of the story. In today’s media landscape, it’s what separates Custer from the endless sea of competitors.  

“I think everyone can have a podcast now, but here's the difference,” said Custer. “Not everyone can get those high-level guests, and I think it's because, as you pointed out, people know that I’ve been in the business a long time and, more importantly, they know that I'm going to treat them fairly. It was funny to me that when I first started the podcast, people thought, ‘Oh, he's only going to interview PBC fighters or fighters that were on Showtime.’ No, I wanted to interview everybody because I love the sport. That's what it was all about. And I opened it up to everybody and I think that once they saw that, they were like, ‘Oh, okay. Damn, I rock with this cat.’  And it opened the floodgates and everybody eventually came on and wanted to come on because they knew, a) like you said, I've been in the business a long time, but b) they knew that I didn't have an agenda. I was more curious to talk to them than anybody because I didn't get the opportunity a lot of times to deal with them as much because of the network politics. So I had favorite fighters who were with Top Rank, I had favorite fighters I liked that fought under DAZN, and I wanted to talk to those guys, see what they were like, because I didn't get the opportunity to do some of their fights. And once we started having conversations, they were like, ‘Yeah, I love this.’ And I loved it, too.” 

And he still does. On Saturday, he gets to do it all over again. Like he never left. I ask him if it’s appropriate to tell him to break a leg this weekend.

He laughs.

“Hey, every time I'm on, I'm going to give you my best,” Custer said. “So I appreciate that, and that's what I intend to do.”