He also says that MLE has a tendency to send packages of eaters to particular events, with an eye towards tilting the balance towards favoured competitors.

“If they want one character to win [a particular contest]… They choose which [other] players are going to go there… and they can prevent other players who actually want be at that contest from going,” Kobayashi said through James.

That said, he’s quite emphatic in stating that he’s not accusing the competitive eating circuit of being fixed, just that the deck is occasionally stacked in favour of certain eaters.

“No, it’s not [fixed], but in their organization, on their terms… it’s close to being that way. They control it the way that they want it.”

The interview also mentions a thwarted deal with Johnsonville Sausages. (Kobayashi competed in an IFOCE Johnsonville bratwurst contest in 2006.)

“Johnsonville Sausages, for example, contacted Kobi and wanted to work with him… and he wanted to work with them, but he couldn’t,” James says. “They were holding him down, like ‘No… unless they go through us, you can’t work with them,’ which was heinous to him, because he had an agency in Japan that he was with… He didn’t belong to [MLE,] but they came up out of the blue and said ‘We own you, and we’re going to make people sign through us if they want anything to do with you.’”

The article lists Don Povia of HHR Media Group as Kobayashi’s manager. The HHR stands for HuggingHaroldReyndold.com, which Povia co-founded.