Kobayashi has posted an entry about the upcoming Nathan’s finals on his blog. It is not 100% clear from the automatic translation, but he appears to commit to competing in the July 4 contest. (The comments seem to think he will attempt to win his seventh title) From the automatic translation:

NEISANZU 2008 world championships

Play! ！ !

I said you left the tournament career makeover?

Where to play sports or another kind of feeling.

So I thought at the goal and still HAKKIRI MITSUKARANAKU I have no choice.

First of all, I aimed to win it from the start,

Thank you cheer! ！ !

If Kobayashi does compete, he will most likely receive a bye since it does not appear a Japan Nathan’s qualifier will be held in 2008 even though the qualifier registration form listed the date of the Tokyo qualifier as June 24. Some commenters have speculated that Kobayashi will compete in the San Francisco qualifier on Saturday. The last time Kobayashi was not the defending champion for an IFOCE event which had qualifiers, the 2004 Krystal Square Off finals, he entered the Jacksonville qualifier the week before.

Kobayashi has a blog entry about dining at Nobuyuki Shirota’s restaurant and doing a noodle eating challenge there. Shirota also has a post about the meal on his blog.

update Sponichi.co.jp has an article about Kobayashi which makes it pretty clear he intends to compete

• OC Mex Food has a blog entry about the screening of the Levi Oliver documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival
• A list of the winners in Mastiff’s MLE game gift certificate giveaway
• The Phillips crabcake contest returns to Maryland next weekend at the Maryland Maritime Heritage Festival in Annapolis.
• A video of Ian Hickman doing a banana spilt challenge
• Shirota’s restaurant opens

The Indepedent of London has an article about the oyster eating challenge at Wintzell’s Oyster House in Mobile Alabama:

The genuine smile is harder to find in the US than anywhere else on earth. On the East and West coasts, people smile because they’re feeling smug. But in Alabama, people smile because they want you to be happy. It’s evident in the 1920s canteen-style interior of Wintzell’s, where the walls are covered with ancient, handwritten signs of folksy, homespun wisdom (”Unfortunately, there is a widespread view that the proper lubricant for a political machine is palm oil rather than elbow grease” is one example).

An Indepedent reporter took a tour with Famous Fat Dave in New York City.

Videos of an eating contest between Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota and wrestlers held during a pro wrestling card on Christmas 2007 can be viewed on youtube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

(Via Serious Eats) Trends in Japan reports that Nobyuki “the Giant” Shirota will open a temporary udon noodle restaurant in Osaka called Shirotaya on April 25. The restaurant will serve bowls of udon that are 16 and 32 times the size of a standard portion. The restaurant is expected to close on August 31.

Shirota has a blog entry and Yahoo of Japan has an article about the restaurant

The next segment of Food Battle Club (The Speed), called “Triangle Records”, has been posted to youtube at http://youtube.com/watch?v=wdQmtAMOf0k. Kobayashi and Nobuyuki Shirota both participate in this segment, which involves eating 40 small food items.

The next segment of Food Battle Club has been posted to youtube in which Takeru Kobayashi and Nobuyuki Shirota attempt to match Ken Domon’s mark of drinking the contents of a water bottle in under five seconds. Neither Kobayashi nor Shirota successfully complete the challenge without spilling or leaving water in the bottle, but they both apparently reach the next round.

Livedoor.co.jp reports that Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota made his pro wrestling debut at the event where he was also expected to compete against “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti in an eating contest. Results from the eating contest have not been released yet.

Sponichi.co.jp reports that Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota defeated pro wrestler Toshiaki Kawada at a curry eating contest held at a Christmas wrestling event, 11 plates to 6.

Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota, held a press conference to promote his competing in an eating contest that will take place at a pro wrestling event on New Year’s Eve. Joe Menchetti is not mentioned in the press release.

update Yahoo Sports has an article on Japanese New Year’s Eve extravaganzas:

On no night is that more evident than New Year’s Eve, which has, over the past seven years, become a cultural tradition as the biggest fighting night of the year.

Boxers, kickboxers, pro wrestlers, actors, comic book giants, comedians and Olympic medalists in a variety of sports have all shared the stage in the past, and will continue to this year when two major shows are held on the same night, one on pay-per-view and the other on network television.

Hong-man’s MMA career consists of 16 seconds last year on New Year’s Eve against Nigerian-born comedian Bobby Ologun. The match consisted of Hong-man, 15 inches and 142 pounds heavier than his foe, dragging Ologun on the ground to the center of the ring by his ankles after Ologun tried a flying knee and landed on his back on the mat.

Bobby Ologun has appeared in several Gal Sone videos, including her competing disguised as a German grandmother and the octopus hunting trip in Canada.

Deresque has information about the New Year’s Eve eating contest that Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota and “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti will participate in. The competition will be part of a professional wrestling / competitive eating extravaganza that will be televised on TV Tokyo. (Pro wrestling is called “hustling” in Japan.) Shirota had a giant spoon at the event announcing the contest.

The transcript of this press conference announces that Gal Sone will be having an eating contest with retired mixed martial artist / pro wrestler Antonio Inoki during the event. Inoki fought Muhammad Ali to a draw in a mixed martial arts contest in 1976.

FritoLay.co.jp reports that snack foods endorsed by Nobuyuki Shirota and Tomoko Miyake were released today. Shirota and Miyake also designed and endorsed snacks for Frito Lay last year.

A subtitled program in which Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota and Natsuko “Gal” Sone receive a medical examination to determine what gives them their eating ability can be seen at http://subtitle.in/w/j0qT_UGSSYQ/IbI___wRkiD

The kakinaguri blog has the results of today’s “Gluttonnous King” contest:

1. Nobuyuki Shirota
2. Takuya Yamamoto
3. The “Artist”
4. Sugawara, 1st woman to defeat Gal Sone in a Gluttonous King / Queen contest
5T. Natsuko “Gal” Sone
5T. Sakura Takahashi
7 Yuko Siyouzi

Shirota announced his retirement after the contest. If he follows throught with it, Kobayashi will be the last eater remaining from the golden age of Japanese competitive eating. Shirota has a statement about his retirement on his blog.

This year’s “Gluttonous King” contest will be televised on Sunday night, and a web page for that program has been set up. The competitors displayed on the page are Gal Sone, Giant Shirota, Takuya Yamamoto, the Artist and newcomer Sakura Takahashi.

A video of the pumpkin eating contest between teams consisting of Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota & Tomoko Miyake and “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti & Elizabeth “Rubber Gut” Canady can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-34LXhHeKs
Read the rest of this entry »

The pumpkin contest between teams from the United States and Japan was broadcast today and R Suzuki has a blog entry about the program

The Kent County Times has an article about the pumpkin contest in Rhode Island between mixed gender pairs from the United States and Japan which describes the origin of the event:

Emi Umeda, who works with the production crew, said the name of the show translates to “Anything is possible,” and she said the point of the show is to take a topic, find who’s best in the world at it and challenge them to a contest against Japan.

One of the topics is a pumpkin-eating contest, she said, which will pit two professional American eaters against two professional Japanese eaters, making their way through five different pumpkin dishes.

In order to get started, the show wanted to find who held the record for growing the largest pumpkin in the world, which happened to be Coventry resident Ron Wallace, who owns a farm at 860 Plainfield Pike.

The American female made her competitive debut according to the article:

The Japanese contestants are Tomoko Miyake and Nobuyuki Shirota and the American contestants are “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti of Wallingford, Conn., and Elizabeth “Rubber Gut” Kennedy from Florida.

“This is my first time doing this,” Kennedy said. “I made some inquiries on the Internet just out of curiosity and interest and they gave me a call.”

The article verifies reports of a US victory:

Since it may be difficult for American viewers to tune into the show to see the results, St. Jean said the American team ended up easily outpacing the team from Japan.

update BigPumpkins.com has some pictures of the contest (bottom of page) One of the pictures is captioned:

At the Wallaces on August 21, 2007, Gentleman Joe, urges his teamate to down more Pumpkin Lobster and Pumpkin pizza. She ate an entire Large Pumpkin Pizza and 2 lb Pumpkin Lobster in 3 minutes. But that was just the appetizer.

update #2 The BigPumpkins.com message board has some threads about the contest: Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3

update #3 Dec 26, 2007 The quoted article spelled Elizabeth’s last name incorrectly. The correct spelling is Canady.

From AICE news:

As predicted by Chairman Chowhound Chapman, Gentleman Joe Menchetti and Elizabeth “Rubber-Gut” Cassidy defeated the great Shirota and Miyake in decisive fashion at the Wallace Pumpkin Farm in Rhode Island. It seems that Gentleman Joe Menchetti who cannot be beaten by man or beast in the pumpkin disciplines and the unknown “Queen Guttress” (stay tuned America, you will be finding out more about this amazing female Eater in the near future) put down the proverbial hammer as they won four of the five contests.

AICE news reports that a multiple round, tag team eating contest between two person mixed gender teams from the United States and Japan will take place at Ron Wallace’s pumpkin farm in Greene, Rhode Island on August 21. The food will be a variety of pumpkin based dishes. Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota and Tomoko “Esute” Miyake will represent the Japanese, while the home team will consist of “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti and Elizabeth “Rubber Gut” Cassidy. Ms. Cassidy was predicted to come in fourth at May’s AICE rib contest in Kansas City, but no results for her from that event were listed and I have not been able to find any other competitive eating information about her on the internet.

In his blog, Shirota reports that he will be going abroad next week, but does not provide further details (automatically translated):

By the way next week, almost it is the foreign country.

There is no sight-seeing, is.

Today, because carrying which can be used even in the foreign country was rented, when perhaps it does

Perhaps, it renews [burogu] from the foreign country, perhaps, but it does not do.

AICE news also reports that Joel “the Cannon” Podelsky won the knish eating contest held on the Coney Island Cyclones Jewish Heritage Night.

A 24 hour eating contest between teams of different sizes was recently held on a Japanese television program called “Food Camp”. The teams consisted of Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota as a single-person team, a two-woman team of Tomoko Miyake and her friend Kana, three wrestlers and six comedians. The comedians won by eating, 22.21 kg in total, but that was only .3 kg more than Shirota ate. Tomoko Miyake’s team was hurt by the medical disqualification of Kana.

Youtube videos: Part 1 Part 2
R Suzuki blog entry
Official program website

Kobayashi and Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota recently faced off, but it was in a bowling alley and not an eating contest. Shirota reports that Kobayashi broke 200 in his blog entry about the competition.

In his blog entry, Kobayashi has a cartoon of Shirota and the Food Battle Club stars. Tomoko Miyake has a cartoon of herself suitable for placement on a button in her blog.

A video of Gal Sone competing in a noodle eating contest against magician Cyril Takayama can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNyJzl680l4 Cyril makes Gal Sone’s lead in the contest almost completely disappear. Japan Probe and R Suzuki have recaps of the program.

The entire rookie women’s qualifier for this years “Gluttonous King” contest can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/euromach2

Gal Sone vs. Shirota

Gal Sone vs. relay team: Part 1, Part 2

R Suzuki reports that a movie based on the “Gourmet Fighter” anime is in production. Natsuko “Gal” Sone and Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota are in the cast listing.

(From R Suzuki) ntv.co.jp reports that Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota remains winless against girl groups after losing to Gyaruru (He lost to Morning Musume in their 2001 Christmas special) Shirota wore a wig and competed as “Jumbo Kurota”

R Suzuki reports that Nobuyki “The Giant” Shirota competed against a lion in on “Dream Vision”. The competitors had to eat 5 kg of meat as quickly as possible. Hopefully clips from the contest will appear on youtube soon.