2025 Great Midwest Ribfest

July 26, 2025 at 3:22 pm by ojrifkin · More posts about:James Webb, Minneapolis

James Webb is doing a livestream of today’s Great Midwest Rib Fest World Rib Eating Championship in Prior Lake, MN.

Official results (12 minutes)

1st 9.11 James Webb
2nd 2.78 Andrew “The Bear” Kogutkiewicz
3rd 2.37 Matthew Raible
4th 2.06 Andrew Krawczyk
5th 1.06 Rene Rovtar first MLE cash prize
6th 0.98 Cherish “Five Pounds” Brown
7th 0.88 Lily Krigelski
8th 0.82 Rick Lavigne

Comments (26)

26 Comments »

  1. SPBBBBMSTBarlow said

    July 26, 2025 @ 6:11 pm

    Dang…great job, James!! Now those second thru 8th place finishers? Dang – even I could have made some money in this one!!

  2. Anonymous said

    July 26, 2025 @ 6:42 pm

    Rene with her first cash prize? Unexpected, but hey, good for her.

  3. Anonymous said

    July 26, 2025 @ 8:30 pm

    It’s more impressive that 3 eaters ate less than 1 pound of ribs in 12 minutes than it is that 1 eater ate more than 9 pounds.

    Cherish “16 oz” Brown was just there for the mini-vacation to Minneapolis. And it shows. No fasting or prep for these contests, its actually embarrassing.

  4. Anonymous said

    July 26, 2025 @ 9:27 pm

    Everyone except Webb were pathetic

  5. Anonymous said

    July 26, 2025 @ 10:20 pm

    What a pathetic contest

  6. Anonymous said

    July 26, 2025 @ 11:18 pm

    Congrats to Rene for finishing in the money. Nick would have been 2nd and Miki 3rd though good to see mid-tier eating talent placing in the money at this one. Perhaps, travel costs and other expenses are starting to add up

  7. Anonymous said

    July 27, 2025 @ 1:44 am

    Barclay said Nick’s absence was caused by airline delays.

  8. Anonymous said

    July 27, 2025 @ 2:47 pm

    Even the 5lb douchebag couldn’t finish a pound

  9. Anonymous said

    July 27, 2025 @ 8:00 pm

    Someone’s absence was from bottomless dicks syndrome

  10. Anonymous said

    July 28, 2025 @ 6:09 am

    @2:47 Why do I get the feeling you too would eat shit at a rib eating contest?

  11. Anonymous said

    July 28, 2025 @ 9:28 am

    “mid-tier eating talent placing in the money”…? None of the eaters that finished behind Webb are mid-tier, they are all low-tier / barely considered competitive. Sorry, but the truth hurts

  12. Anonymous said

    July 28, 2025 @ 1:20 pm

    @9:28 what would be considered mid-tier talent ? Andrew, Matthew, and Rene all have quite a bit of experience at the table

  13. Anonymous said

    July 28, 2025 @ 2:45 pm

    1:20 experience =/= talent

  14. Anonymous said

    July 28, 2025 @ 3:48 pm

    in 2019, 2022, and 2023, the top 5 finishers all ate at least 3 lbs. (Contest not held in 2020 and 2021).

    2024 was weak, but this year was an embarrassment.

  15. Anonymous said

    July 28, 2025 @ 4:40 pm

    Eating the equivalent of a value meal is not experience at the table

  16. Peter Parker said

    July 28, 2025 @ 7:21 pm

    I really don’t like people are trying to bring down other eaters. Those eaters show up to a lot contest knowing the same 10ish eaters will probably be at the contest and have no hopes of winning money, but the show up cause the love the sport. If it wasn’t for those people filling out the ranks the companies holding the contests would cancel them. Who only wants to watch 4-5 people eat (depending on the payout); no one. These eaters caught a break, no one really signed up this competition this year. Imagine showing up to this contest and realizing hey I could actually win money for once. It lifts their spirits, makes them want to keep coming to more events, even though likely they will never win anymore money. Events like this is great for the sport.

    And to all the people who are crapping on the competitors, are you just butt hurt you weren’t there for what you guys seem to imply these people as lay ups and missed out on the money? If so that’s a terrible reason to bring these people down. You could just to come events and compete and you wouldn’t have those problem.

  17. Anonymous said

    July 28, 2025 @ 10:05 pm

    Peter Parker you nailed it! We all know there was only James there but still had 4 other hungry ranked eaters at the table. Rene finally making some money too and always a great sport!

  18. Anonymous said

    July 29, 2025 @ 9:28 am

    My problem with the “bottom of the pack” eaters isn’t that they “aren’t as good as other eaters”, it’s that they are not putting in the work or suffering to the same degree as the top eaters. Rarely are they fasting for 24 hours beforehand. Rarely are they actually training to improve on their skills. So sure, they can show up “for the love of the sport”, but I don’t have to respect them or applaud their performance when I know they are not nearly as hardworking as most of the top ~20ish eaters.

    These low-ranked eaters could easily just do local / independent contests and probably make a few bucks (more than in MLE, at least). But instead they choose to be mascots for MLE because they like to tell their friends or any random person they meat that “I’m the number XX competitive eater in the world!”. Gimme a break

  19. Anonymous said

    July 29, 2025 @ 12:03 pm

    Should be Cherish “Five hot dog” Brown. Barely breaks that mumber

  20. Anonymous said

    July 29, 2025 @ 1:15 pm

    @928 or maybe they just like the consistent events and the people they get to eat with? That’s ok too

  21. Peter Parker said

    July 29, 2025 @ 2:42 pm

    @9:28 So is your problem is that they are in MLE? I really don’t see an issue with that; unless you really hate MLE that much, which I can see then be a triggering point for you. This contest seemed to be a morale victory for these eaters. Maybe not the best phrase for the situation, but “every squirrel finds a nut”. I am happy they did. Again without the bottom of the pack eaters these contest couldn’t happen, they are the unsung hero’s of the league. People just having fun and forging friendships and helping the sport in general should be same decency as everyone else in the contest.

    It would be different if every contest had top and mid eaters clamoring to fill the spots of the contest, but that is never the case. I have heard of plenty of eaters only showing up to contests they know they can win money at, even though they are supposedly training and bettering their skills, but they also know they hit their skills ceiling and that is the best they will ever do in contests, so they don’t want to compete against people who are better than them.

  22. Anonymous said

    July 29, 2025 @ 3:27 pm

    @928 Because these ranked eaters have experience, if they stuck to local contests, you would then accuse them of being pro and taking advantage of the locals. As history on this site shows, you’re going to hate on them one way either way.

  23. Anonymous said

    July 29, 2025 @ 6:16 pm

    Unsung heroes LOL. That’s a new one…

    Pretty sure a lot of the higher ranked eaters avoided this one because of 1. The small purse and 2. Questionable weighing / results in past years

  24. Anonymous said

    July 30, 2025 @ 2:48 am

    @9:28 Since there are 2 Andrew’s that ate at ribs, Krawczyk actually was mid-tier back in 2022 comparable stats to Tanner in pork roll, hot dogs and slippers in Colorado. Probably now Krawczyk just doing it for fun since yes numbers went way down in corn this year and Zburgers the year before. Andrew ‘The Bear’ however has been consistent every year in ribs so even with nearly a decade of experience at the table wouldn’t say ‘The Bear’ is mid-tier but definitely better than your local contest eater. Where is Tanner now though ? Eaters maybe just want to do it for fun and not chase the money or else they might end up losing money if doing too many events

  25. Anonymous said

    July 30, 2025 @ 4:32 am

    HAHAHAH! “ranked eaters” – That’s the problem with MLE. A majority of the list is BS with eaters being “ranked” and are not high level eaters. Probably past the top 10. So, these bums do local contests competing against grandpa joe and beating them or even getting beat by Pete the local who is actually better than they are.

  26. Anonymous said

    July 30, 2025 @ 9:21 am

    @3:27, there are plenty of non-MLE contests that pay out decent prize money, anywhere from $150 to $1,000 isn’t unheard of. Just look at the contests that people like Moh, Raina, ScottEats, Jack, Nader, and Wayne do. Molly and Dan pretty much run the professional scene for independent contest, so I get it that these bottom-tier MLE eaters wouldn’t want to compete against them. But there’s plenty of contests with smaller prizes (less than $500 ) that aren’t worthwhile for the top indy eaters.

    Believe me, MLE would be able to fill the table with eaters even if these “unsung heroes” didn’t show up.

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