Juris Shibayama answers 10 questions on IFOCE.com
U of Penn student newspaper report about the Wing Bowl
Cornell Sun report from Wing Bowl 16
philadelphia.about.com Wing Bowl 16 gallery, has pictures of Juris Shibayama, Erik Denmark, Wing Kong, Humble Bob, Wing Tut, US Male, Joey Chestnut, Pat Bertoletti and others
Gallery of Hamtrack, MI paczki eating contest
Takuya Yamamoto thinks the root beer he drank in the USA is Coke with a “drug-ish kind of taste”
Bodybuilder Isabelle Turell eats a 1 pound burger and then a half pound ostrich burger

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A press release announces that Mastiff Games has acquired the rights to make a video game based on Major League Eating.

Major League Eating: The Game features the world’s greatest gurgitory athletes competing across twelve different food types. Built much like a fighting game, MLE: The Game requires players to show brilliant on-screen eating; a mastery of offensive and defensive weapons including burps, belches, and mustard gas; and of course the technical mastery necessary to avoid emptying one’s stomach in a vividly colored reversal of fortune.

ifoce.com has no additional information except for a link in the sidebar to the Mastiff home page. The platforms and expected release date for the game were not announced.

It will be interesting to see how much eaters receive, if any, for use of their electronic likenesses.

update This AFP article reports that Mastiff hopes to release the game in time for the July 4 Nathan’s finals.

Kotaku has a blog entry with 77 comments currently

Japanese article about the game

update #2 ripten has an interview with game developer Bill Swartz He says that eaters will have signature moves (Will the “Baby Bird” be one of them? 😉 ) and evades the question of whether game characters will be based on real world eaters.

update #3 The San Jose Mercury reports that Joey Chestnut will appear in the game.

update #4 SoupyTrumpet produced a demo of the game box (see above)

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The New York Post’s television column lists the ratings for last Sunday’s contest on Spike TV:

* Spike’s “Ham N’ Egg” gorgefest snared 863,000 viewers during halftime of Sunday’s Super Bowl – a Spike record for a competi tive eating event. Winners: Eric Denmark (61 hard- boiled eggs), Joey Chestnut (7.14 lbs. of ham) and their cardiologists.

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Beautiful Brian announces an upcoming rock & roll CD titled “Stick to Blogging”. The lyrics will contain criticisms of people in the competitive eating community. Joey Chestnut is mentioned as a target. Brian says he might retire from competitive eating after the album’s release.

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(Via “Pleasure and Payne”) Derek “Wing Tut” Payne designed some anti New England Patriot T shirts. The New York Post mentioned that line of clothing:

Derek Payne, 28, of Pittsburgh, designed a line of “18-1” shirts that are being sold on zazzle.com.

On his shirts, the numeral 1 is replaced with a graphic of a hand flipping the bird.

“I’m a Steeler fan, so I’ll give the Pats the middle finger as much as anybody,” he said. “I was definitely cheering for the New York Giants as they knocked the Pats off their perch last night.”

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The English network ITN uploaded footage from the Spike TV pig skin eating contest to youtube, and today that clip is the most viewed British video tagged as comedy. (The clip is the #19 comedy video regardless of country of origin.) Beautiful Brian has also uploaded video of the entire pig skin contest.

A full list of the video’s honors is available after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »

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BeautifulBrian.com has a bluesy song on his website about the travails he experiences. The first verse of the song goes:

I came in as an eater I do the best i can
I never made no money but i dont give a damn
I get the blues when im not eating Im an eater till i die
Dont care how i finish , It aint about a piece of pie

BeautifulBrian.com also has a review of Badlands Booker’s fourth CD.

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The New York Daily News has an article about redevelopment plans for Coney Island:

Buried deep in the plans is a provision that says of the 50 blocks being rezoned in Coney Island, only the block that contains Nathan’s – at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Aves. – and one block immediately west would be rezoned for towers.

That means the two-story building, which has drawn millions of hot dog lovers since 1916, could expand to 14 stories – or more – when detailed plans are approved next year.

“Nathan’s would be given more opportunities for development on its property, which could lead to any one of a number of scenarios, including the expansion of Nathan’s or its redevelopment as a new building,” City Planning spokeswoman Rachaele Raynoff confirmed.

Curbed suggests that Nathan’s redevelopment plans include a competitive eating venue.

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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:
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As of 4:53 pm eastern, “Competitive Eating” was #8 in the list of top search terms on the front page of yahoo.com

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(From Matt Sollars) “American Stomach” author Frederick Kaufman reports that Crazy Legs Conti performed an oyster taste test at the Grand Central Station Oyster Bar in which he tried to identify one of seven oysters that was genetically modified. A video of the taste test is available on youtube.

2 “American Stomach” reviews are out: LA Times, Time Out New York

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In a forum thread on bodybuilding.com, DedicatedForLif/FuriousPete123 announces he ate a 72 ounce steak in under 7 minutes, breaking Frank Pastore’s record of 9.5 minutes. He submitted a video of his meal to youtube.

I am unaware of any other claims on the 72 ounce record. Cookie Jarvis ate a 76 ounce steak in with a side of creamed spinach in 7.5 minutes

In another bodybuilding.com thread, a banana eating contest is taking place. DedicatedForLif/FuriousPete is the currently tied for the lead in that contest with 16 bananas. Eatfeats commenter Alex from Panama is the other co-leader. There is a female entry in the contest, Simpy, who ate 5 bananas The contest ends at midnight Sunday if anyone wants to submit his or her video.

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Fox Business has an article about the economics of competitive eating with quotes from George Shea, Arnie “Chowhound” Chapman and Crazy Legs Conti.

The article reports that the IFOCE has five full time employees. Shea claims that the 2007 Nathan’s hot dog contest produced $100 million worth of media for the restaurant chain. Joey received %0.01 corrected percent of that amount ($10,000) as his first place prize, which might be why has yet to commit to the defense of his title.

The article lists Chapman as the winner of the 1991 Nathan’s contest:

Chapman, a 46-year-old better known in the eating world as “Chowhound,” holds the record for downing the most pickles. He ate 2.94 pounds of sweet hard sour pickles in 3 minutes and 45 seconds.

“Sometimes I don’t know what I am thinking, it’s such an unforgiving food, ” Chapman said. Chapman won the Nathan’s contest in 1991 by eating 11.5 dogs in six minutes, which today seems like a meager amount.

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Pig Skin results from IFOCE.com:

1. Tim Janus, 14.3 oz in 6 minutes, $2500
2. Russ Keeler 12.7
3. Crazy Legs Conti 11.8
4. Pete Davekos 11.6
5. David “Brickhouse” Braunstein 8.2
6. “Nasty” Nate Biller 8.0
7. Brian Seiken 7.6
8. Pete “Philly Guy” Miernicki 6.0

updated with results from beautifulbrian’s contest report Brian was originally announced as the 3rd place finisher and will have a contest video up later today.

update #2 The Times of Malta? has a Reuters news video

update #3 VH1’s Best Week Ever blog has a contest report with some pictures. (VH1 and Spike TV are both owned by Viacom) (Thanks Caroline Pierce)

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A new show on the Travel Channel called “Food Paradise” has started production by recording trips to the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas and the 17th Street Bar & Grill in O’Fallon, Illinois. I am not sure if this is the same show that is currently seeking a host.

In other television news, AICE news reports that a film crew from the History Channel will be present at the burger contest at the Clinton Station Diner on Saturday.

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Kenji Aoki, maintainer of one of the more popular Japanese competitive eating websites, has started a blog at http://ameblo.jp/oogui-diary/ One of his recent entries reports on a contest held for winners of Food Battle Stadium contests won by “Essen”.

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Krystal Square Off finalists offer advice on how to eat as much as possible in as short a period of time as possible in USAToday.com
The Hollywood Reporter on Super Bowl halftime viewing options
Giant sushi roll eating contest for teams of Japanese female college students
Blog entry & gallery by recent Quick Chek sub winner
Picture of Sonya Thomas & fan at Washington Capitals game
NY Daily News on Brooklyn vegan wing eating contest
Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane attempts 7 pound breakfast burrito challenge (Female burrito finishers receive free food for life)
Don “Moses” Lerman is upset about not being named a jalapeno judge
Krystal Super Bowl photo contest

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Galleries from the “Eat the Meat” wing eating contest sponsored by WPLR in Connecticut are available. Two separate contests were held: one for in studio qualifiers, the other for top finishers in restaurant qualifiers and both had first prizes of $1000. “Wild Rice” won the first contest and “The Big Cat” was the victor in the other contest.

Miss Elizabeth “First Lady of Wings” gained entrance into the finals by winning an in studio contest. She has galleries of her contests. She finished sixth out of ten in her finals contest.

Steve DePino has some pictures and a slideshow from the finals.

(From Ted Wilson) Full results from the Pittsburgh Wing Championship Series are now available. According to these results, Wing Tut came in 8th place.

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Some video clips from Sunday’s “Ham & Eggs” program can be viewed at Spike.com. The titles and descriptions of the clips follows:

Pat Bertoletti – Pat Bertoletti is determined to maintain his dominance of MLE.
Kobayashi’s Defeat – The eaters of MLE discuss Kobayashi’s defeat at the Turkey Bowl
Turkey Bowl Upsets – Check out a recap of the upsets from the MLE Turkey Bowl
Cinderella Stories – Juris Shibayama and Gravy Brown share their MLE Cinderella Stories.

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(From “Pig Skin”) A pig skin eating contest will be held at Hawaiian Tropic Zone in Times Square on Thursday at noon to promote the “Ham & Eggs” contest that will be televised on Spike TV during the Super Bowl halftime show. The total purse is $5000. Registration for 8 slots will open tonight at approximately 10pm.

update a press release is available. Tim “Eater X” Janus will compete, former NFL punter Sean Landeta will serve as guest judge and the contest will be six minutes long.

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Youtube has a video of a burger eating contest overseen by the stars from “Harold & Kumar go to White Castle” which aired on MTV2 in 2004.

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BeautifulBrian.com’s Wing Bowl preview episode features Dave “U. S. Male” Goldstein.

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We are now a week away from the air date of the final installment of the Las Vegas Chowdown trilogy and there appears to be no mention of the program on Spike TV’s Major League Eating page or home page.

The air date & time are not on the home page of ifoce.com either. Viewers need to click on the link labeled “It’s official” to obtain the details, and the air date in the final paragraph of that page is listed as “January 3”.

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The Deseret News has a review of Fredrick Kaufman’s “A Short History of the American Stomach”, which will be released a week from Monday according to amazon.com

In 1800, supporters of Thomas Jefferson presented the new president with a 900-pound “Mammoth Cheese” allegedly “produced from the milk of one thousand Republican cows.” Early in the 19th century, magazine articles written by Washington Irving spoke of the advantages of putting nuts in liver puddings and chicken jellies.

Kaufman introduces “the brain in the gut” theory which, he writes, helps to explain 900-pound cheeses, 600-pound supergrills, 240-foot ovens and other indications of “American food mania.” Food mania would also be a good way to describe the eating contests of our modern era, including chicken wings in Philadelphia, jalapenos in Laredo, crawfish in Baton Rouge, oysters in New Orleans, conch fritters in Key West and chili in Reno.

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A high definition video of the french fry eating contest between Elizabeth “Rubber Gut” Canady and Hatsuyo Sugawara has been uploaded to stage6. The video begins with Ms. Canady showing how thin the skin on her stomach is. She is then examined in a device which apparently shows her stomach is larger than normal. The french fry contest is interrupted for footage of “Rubber Gut” at a diner. Her tab is apparently $539.26.

Video captures from the clip are below:

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