Erik Denmark has posted a review of the Major League Eating video game to his blog. He is satisfied with his character’s appearance in the game:

My character has a fun look. My hair is super spiked; the bandana is obviously a signature of mine that I am glad they captured well. I like that my character is recognizable as me, in that the features do somehow look like mine (so I have been told) but also, some features are exaggerated, such as my elongated chin in the pre-match screen. I would obviously like my character to have more muscle mass and more capacity but okay reality gets in the way again.

Erik Denmark has posted a blog entry about Sunday’s rib eating contest at Chinook Winds casino on the Oregon coast which contains a picture of the official score sheet and a gallery. There is also a link to a a contest report by The News Guard.

• Erik Denmark has a report from Coney Island
• Ian Hickman interview for delawareonline.com
• MissBusyLady believes Joey Chestnut should have won Nathan’s in regulation time
• HungrySisters on the Nathan’s finals
• List of Delaware eating challenges
• Mindy Kaling predicts she will eat “thousands of beets” at The Office Games
• NY Daily News reports on Peggy O’Neill’s July burger contest and reports the winner as “Pete Zerwinski”
• Greenwood, SC hot dog contest Saturday, $100 first prize
• Top 16 things overheard at the Nathan’s finals
• Will Millender added to non-IFOCE rankings
• Darren Rovell says he will drink 6 bottles of ketchup in 10 minutes if the Steelers leave Pittsburgh

• Erik Denmark to compete in the Detlef Schrempf Celebrity Golf Classic today. Kato Kaelin will also be a participant.
• Pat Bertoletti on the Nathan’s finals
• Jamie of Hungry Sisters on her 9 HDB performance at Myrtle Beach
• Jill Stoler has a report with videos of the Brooklyn Stinky Cheese eating contest. Will Millender won the contest.
• “Beautiful” Brian judges the NYC Olive Garden and finds it wanting
• Chicago Pizzafest results
• No MLE video game release this week

• Charlotte qualifier to take place at Concord Mills Mall parking lot
• Singer/pianist Dr. John competes in a chile pepper eating contest
• Hall of Fame Thurman Thomas to help judge hot dog contest at Watkins Glen
• Video from 2003 Nathan’s finals
• News video of Kansas qualifier captured by Skinnyboy
• Erik Denmark’s Kansas City qualifier report
• Arena Football kicker completes Big Texan 72 ounce steak
  
• Results of Denver hot dog contest qualifier
• Nanticoke PA pierogie eating contest this weekend (date unspecified)
• Steakbellie & sons run in 5K race
• Fake inspirational poster (in the style of despair.com) using a picture of a hot dog eating contest

• Erik Denmark appears on local afternoon news
• Beautiful Brian has a contest report and video of the watermelon eating contest at Rockefeller Center
• Hall Hunt predicts Saturday’s Pennsylvania qualifiers
• Don Lerman retells the legend of the half blanket
• Jill Stoler will compete in the Virginia strawberry contest
• Beau Jo’s Pizza to host pizza eating contest May 31
• A new trailer for the “Chili Dawg” documentary about the 2002 Wing Bowl.
• Burger eating contest for MTV employees

Erik Denmark has a blog entry about his appearance on the Groz & Gas radio show today, which is available online. Erik talks about the Major League Eating video game and his compensation for it. Like Pat Bertoletti, he is not clear about the terms of the royalty agreement. He will attempt to qualify for Nathan’s in Kansas City, but makes no mention of tomorrow’s gyro contest in Houston.

There is also a press release for the MLE video game with descriptions of four of the game’s characters.

Erik Denmark has a blog entry about his participation in last Saturday’s asparagus eating contest in Stockton, California which contains what he believes are more accurate totals for the top four finishers:

1 - Joey Jaws Chestnut (1) - 8.25 lbs. (reported as 8.8), $1500
2 - Pat Deep Dish Bertoletti (2) - 8.125 lbs. (reported as 7.14) , $750
3 - Erik the Red Denmark (12) - 4.875 lbs. (reported as 4.75), $500
4 - Juris Dr Big Time Shibayama (17) - 4.625 lbs. (reported as 4.5)

(As noted in a previous post, Pat’s counter displayed 8 when the contest was over)

Erik also has a photo gallery of the contest.

Erik Denmark has posted a blog entry and gallery from the February 23 jalapeno eating contest in Laredo, Texas.

Feb 23 Flan Fest / eating contest in Tampa (Flan is creamy Spanish custard)
Feb 23 Ramen eating contest at anime festival in Anchorage, AK
March 1 Boston bacon eating contest
Mudbug Madness - 5 crawfish eating contests May 22-25 in Shreveport, LA
Video of Flushing, NY dumpling eating contest conducted in Chinese language
Picture of biscuit eating contest for Chinese couples
IFOCE.com claims Ray Meduna predicts Erik Denmark will win the jalapeno contest, a pro-Bertoletti prediction is sought

update The full “Ham & Egg” program is available on Spike TV’s MLE page

Ham contest results

1 Joey Chestnut 7.14 lbs. in 8 minutes
2 Pat Bertoletti 6.34
3 Tim Janus 4.1
4 Tim Brown 3.34
5 Rich LeFevre 3.24
6 Hall Hunt 3.00
7 Juliet Lee 2.98
8 Juris Shibayama 1.7

The ham standings are announced as the new rankings, which would put Juris Shibayama at #8 and ahead of Bob Shoudt, Sonya Thomas, Chip Simpson and Kobayashi.

Hard boiled eggs contest
1 Erik Denmark 61 eggs in 8 minutes
2 Chris Abatsas 59.5
3 Micah “Wing Kong” Collins 49
4 Allen Goldstein 48
5 Arturo Rios 43
6 Steakbellie 40

Erik Denmark’s result is announced as a new world record despite being less than Sonya’s amount (65) and in a longer time (6:40 vs 8:00)

Screen captures of the rankings and the teleblog follows after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »

Philly.com reports that Tom “Wolfman” Wolf became the last qualifier for Wing Bowl 16 when he won today’s in-studio Wing Off by eating 16 large wings in 5 minutes.

Erik “the Red” Denmark won the hot dog eating contest held at halftime of Saturday’s 76er game to gain entry. The list of ranked out of town eaters omits Juris “Dr. Big Time” Shibayama.

This will be the first all-male field since 2003. The article reports that “Sonja” Thomas did not inquire about entering.

Hall Hunt and Erik Denmark have both posted trip reports with several pictures on their experiences at the Krystal finals.

Erik “the Red” Denmark reports on his attempts to set two Guinness pepper eating records at the Groz-with-Gas-a-Thon on Friday:

I was on the docket of guests that included a superstar lineup of Seattle sports stars past and present. I think I was able to entertain everyone who was in attendance by putting myself through some serious pain and establishing some pepper eating records that I am very proud of:

Guinness World Record Jalapeno Eating Results (1 minute):

26 Jalapenos (beats previous record of 16)

Habanero Pepper Eating Results (1 minute eating with no substances during and for 5 minutes following):

32 Habaneros (establishes new record)

A gallery and videos of the attempts are available.

Erik Denmark reports that he will attempt to break two pepper eating records today for jalapenos and habaneros at the 11th annual 950 KJR Groz-with-Gas-a-thon charity auction. The attempts will take place at Anthony’s on Pier 66 in Seattle around 5:00 pm PST and can be listened to at 950KJR.com.

Erik “the Red” announces in a podcast that he wants to appear in the Guinness Book of World Records for jalapeno eating and also break the MLE record for habanero peppers.

Erik Denmark reports that he appeared in a local sketch comedy television show, Seattle Untimely:

Click Here to watch the most recent episode where I play a proponent of ’supply-side economics’ in a competitive eating/political issue debate with Charlie Stockman, a proponent of ‘green economics’ with anchor, Charles Armstrong as moderator. The show turned out really well and it is damn funny.

Video clips of Erik Denmark appearing on local news programs to promote the Chinook Winds Ribs contest and the “Stand by Me” pie eating contest are available on his blog. Carlene & Rich LeFevre also appear in the Chinook Winds video.

(From Erik Denmark) A video clip of Erik Denmark’s appearance on Komo - TV’s Northwest Afternoon can be viewed at http://www.komotv.com/nwa/6410947.html?video=pop&t=a

From Erik Denmark’s blog:

For those of you in Washington State, you can see me on the popular mid-day talk show, Northwest Afternoon on KomoTV (ABC)tomorrow - Thursday, July 18 at 3:00 pm PST.

During the segment I will answer questions from the hosts Kent and Natasha and we will have a one minute jalapeno eating contest.

Erik Denmark has written a report about his experience in last week’s Nathan’s finals which includes some interesting information about Joey Chestnuts counters:

I heard from someone who was watching Joey on stage that he was eating from multiple plates at the same time. This was more than likely a ploy to make it difficult for Kobayashi to determine where Chestnut’s actual numbers were at. This was a brilliant tactic by Joey because not only did it confuse Kobayashi, the judges totally messed up his count as well. Joey maintained at least a 3-5 hot dog lead throughout the competition. Joey’s counter was off by as many as 5 hot dogs for the entire second half of the contest when it looked like Kobayashi was catching up. The contest was never tied, not even close. Joey cleared his mouth with amazing ease in about 10 seconds after his final stuff, partly because he was so infuriated with his judge for screwing up his count, he wanted to tell him. If you read Joey’s lips he can be seen clearly telling his counter that his count was off by five repeadtedly when he clears his mouth at the end of the contest.

Kobayashi has the following quote in today’s New York Times wrap-up of Nathan’s contest.

Mr. Kobayashi bowed and was humble in defeat. But he also pointed straight at Mr. Chestnut and yelled, “I will definitely beat him next year.”

It is not clear how Kobayashi will gain entry into the 2008 finals since he no longer receives a bye as defending champion and no qualifier was held in Tokyo this year.

Other post contest links
SJ Mercury article about Joey Chestnut’s victory - Joey will attend Kobayashi’s P’Zone exhibition next week.
Joey Chestnut podcast on KCBS
Erik Denmark article from the Seattle Times
WNBC article and raw video
Video clip of Kobayashi’s reversal from theblogofhilarity (via thebiglead.com)
audience video showing what was going on during the last commercial break from cyber fyber
news video from News 12 Brooklyn
Gothamist blog entry
Observations from Megamunch about ESPN censorship - the reversal was not mentioned on SportsCenter either
Commentary from Wing Tut

The Seattle Times has a long article about Erik “the Red” Denmark with coverage of his victory at the Shea Stadium qualifier. Denmark had about $10,000 in travel expenses last year.

Rich Shea says he is unaware of any diabetic eaters, which would come as news to Pat Philbin.

(From Erik Denmark) Erik Denmark has written a preview of tomorrow’s pigs feet contest that he will compete in. Some of the other expected entrants are Crazy Legs, Justin Mih and Skinnyboy.

Erik Denmark answers several questions about relationships in a page on nerve.com