Judging category

Sports Illustrated has an article about judging at the 2019 Nathan's finals and the lack of controversy this year. Mets infielder Jeff served as the number flipper for Darron Breeden.
Ken Hoffman has a column for CultureMap Houston about retiring from his role as a judge in the Nathan's finals.
2012 Republican presidential candidate has been announced as a judge in today's hot dog eating contest at the Utah County Fair in Spanish Fork, UT. update Aug 21 Herald Extra has a gallery of the contest won by Joe LaRue with a total of 15 hot dogs in 8 minutes
AMNY.com has an article on how Tony Danza became the judege for the meatball eating contest at the Feast of San Gennaro in New York City on September 23.

Rib contest complaint results in football position change

The Tennessean has a report on how Vanderbilt lineman Adam Butler credits his grievances at a rib eating contest held at the 2012 Music City Bowl for his switch from offense to defense. His coaches thought his complaints about his opposition from North Carolina State cheating showed a combative nature.

“For some reason, the judge voted that we lost the rib-eating contest, and I stood up and argued with the judge,” Butler said. “(The judges) were counting the bones. But (North Carolina State players) had ribs on their plate that didn’t have a bone in it, which means they just took the bones out of the ribs and threw them in the tub.”

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Ken Hoffman has a column for Politico about serving as a judge / counter at the Nathan's finals for 10 years. He will oversee Joey Chestnut tomorrow.
Takeru Kobayashi will serve as a judge at the 4th Annual American Coney Island Coney Dog Eating Challenge in Detroit on August 28.
Ken Hoffman of the Houston Chronicle has a column mentioning judging Sonya Thomas in the 2014 women's Nathan's finals calling Miki Sudo's victory "one of the greatest upsets in competitive eating history". Sonya has never finished ahead of Miki Sudo.
Two Nathan's judgeships are currently up for auction on charitybuzz.com. The current bid is $250; bidding ends on July 2.

Crazy Legs Conti wins 2014 Sweet Corn Fiesta

update May 5 Michelle Lesco confirms she got 5th place w//3
Miki Sudo has a contest report
Crazy Legs Conti says Sudo & Shoudt got the original 2nd place money despite the tie and Erik Denmark got the 3rd place money despite finishing 4h

update April 30 In Crazy Legs Conti’s Huffington Post contest report claims Bob had a “Mt. Everest” of uneaten kernels which did not result in a deduction and compares himself to a sports dynasty after winning the contest for the 4th time in the past 7 years.

Merly at Mr. Food has a blog entry, a video of the end of the pro contest end and a video of the amateur contest

update 8:50 The Palm Beach Post has an article which does not mention the controversy or near-fight
update April 30 Cra

update 6:55 Bob Shoudt has posted the post-contest ears of two unnamed competitors: Eater 1 | Eater 2

update 4:20 George Shea has the top 3

1) Crazy Legs Conti 43 ears 46 pre-deduction
2T) Miki Sudo 42 47 pre-deduction
2T) Bob Shoudt 42 44 pre-deduction reportedly almost came to blows w/Conti
4) Erik Denmark 40 (via twitter) 43 pre-deduction
5?) Michelle Lesco 32? (results 5-7 from Josh Miller)
6?) Josh Miller 31?
7T?) Adrian Morgan 30?
7T?) Badlands Booker 30?

update 3:50 Crazy Legs Conti has been announced as the winner with 43 ears in 12 minutes.

update 3:30 The contest has started

The festival facebook has the full field for the contest. The Sun-Sentinel has a preview

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Sup Dogs announces that porn star Carter Cruise will be the celebrity judge for its hot dog eating contest in Greenville, NC on Saturday. The winner will receive $200.  
The Alliance for Coney Island Winter Gala will hold a charity auction offering a Nathan's finals judgeship on February 13. George Shea will function as MC for the event.  
A charity auction is offering a chance to be an official judge in the 2014 Nathan's finals. The staring bid is $300. (via UALC)
The new poll asks what do you think is the primary reason for the recent increases in MLE contest totals. (In last year's GQ article emcee Dave Keating admitted to Jon Ronson that lighter cupcakes were used in the 2012 Waterloo, Iowa cupcake contest than in the previous year's competition.)
The new poll asks for your opinion on the official results of last month's Hooters World Wing Eating Championship in Clearwater, FL.
Naader Reda has a video of an unnamed wing eating contest where he was credited with 32 wings after he ate 25. (gallery of a wing contest held in California this past weekend)
Don "Moses" Lerman will judge the eating contests held at the Long Island Kosher BBQ in Westbury, NY on June 9.

GQ Magazine competitive eating article available online

update Nov 1 NotoriousBob.net has a quote that did not appear in the article

update Oct 31 Some observations and links about the article follow:

  • Ronson asserts that the 1916 origin story for Nathan’s hot dog eating contest is “(almost certainly) untrue”, which Mortimer Matz, Nathan’s promoter of the 1970s and 80s confirmed in a 2010 NY Times interview. The claim that the first contest took place on July 4, 1972 is incorrect; a contest was held on Memorial Day weekend of that year and a competition took place in 1967 to honor the centennial of the hot dog.
  • 2009 is listed as the year of Takeru Kobayashi’s final IFOCE sanctioned contest. He competed against Joey Chestnut in a contest in Singapore in May 2010.
  • Emcee Dave Keating says that the cupcakes used in the shortened cupcake contest were lighter than those used in 2011, which explains why 7th place finishers Maria “Edible” and Michelle “Cardboard Shell” Lesco ate more in 6 minutes (48) than the previous year’s winner Tim Janus ate in 8 minutes (42). (Video of the contest).

If you need something to read due to Hurricane Sandy related disruptions, Jon Ronson’s article about competitive eating for the November 2012 issue of GQ is now available online. The article includes mini profiles of Joey Chestnut, Pat Bertoletti, Matt Stonie, Bob Shoudt and Maria “Edible” and contains reports from the Nathan’s finals, TooJay’s corned beef sandwich eating contest, and a behind the scenes look at the shortened cupcake contest held at the Isle of Capri casino in Waterloo, Iowa where Bob Shoudt offered these thoughts on cheating:

“I’ve seen everything,” he says. “People throwing hot dogs under the table. People making the biggest messes you can imagine.”

My eyes widen. “So there’s such a mess under the table it’s impossible to determine what counts as an eaten thing?” I ask.

“Oh, there’s techniques,” says Bob. “People suddenly get happy feet.” He mimes an eater dropping an item of food and then covertly stamping it into the ground. I’m appalled. Cheating makes everything pointless. And then Bob confesses that—if need be—he will be one of those cheaters. When his wife is in the crowd, they use pre-arranged signals. “If the eaters are dropping stuff like crazy, she’ll give a meaningless cheer. I’ll understand. Suddenly the food gets very slippery for me.”

He gives me a look that says: Don’t judge me until you’ve walked in my shoes. Leave the Gandhi-like behavior to the fools who don’t mind losing to the cheaters.

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2012 Nathan’s finals converage

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NYPost reports that MarShon Brooks of the Brooklyn Nets will participate in the Nathan's finals (Stefan Bondy says he will judge). Brooks predicted that Sonya Thomas would upset Joey Chestnut even though they will not be competing in the same contest.
Senator Olympia Snowe will judge the Great Maine Lobster Eating Contest at the Portland LobsterFest on June 30.

Review of Hooters wing circuit

The Hooters circuit is supposedly being judged according to weight of wing meat consumed, but results have generally been announced using count of wings eaten. In addition to the divergence in units of measurement, there have been interesting results from most of the qualifiers which are described after the jump. (Weights listed below are unofficial except for the Augusta qualifier.)

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The new poll asks what you think is the appropriate penalty when there are multiple items with less than half the food eaten at the end of a unit-based debris food contest like the Wing Bowl or Sweet Corn Fiesta contest.
A judgeship in the Nathan's finals is up for auction on biddingforgood.com. The current bid is $300 and bidding closes May 9. (via YPC_at_CMA).
The Brooklyn Daily reports on Joey Chestnut judging the "Hottest Dog" contest at the new PetSmart. The winning dog, Chloe, dressed as a hot dog.
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