In a comment on megamunch, “Will” Bill Myers says he picked up a copy of the Wing Bowl 16 rules when he competed in today’s qualifier. Rule #2 follows:

Wing Bowl 16 is an IFOCE/MLE officially sanctioned and sponsored event, any member of, or person affiliated with, non-IFOCE/MLE professional eating organizations, including but not limited to AICE, are also not eligible to participate in the contest.

The FCC’s web site has a page about regulations about radio station contest rules which states that eligibility restrictions must be publicized in some manner from the time a contest is announced:

“Material terms” include those factors which define the operation of the contest and which affect participation therein. Although the material terms may vary widely depending mentioned in a cupon the exact nature of the contest, they will generally include: (1) how to enter or participate; (2) eligibility restrictions; (3) entry deadline dates; (4) whether prizes can be won; (5) when prizes can be won; (6) the extent, nature, and value of the prizes; (7) the basis for valuation of prizes; (8) time and means of selection of winners; and/or (9) tie-breaking procedures.

In general, the time and manner of disclosure of the material terms of a contest are within the licensee’s discretion. However, the obligation to disclose the material terms arises at the time that the audience is first told how to enter or participate and continues thereafter. The material terms should be disclosed periodically by announcements broadcast on the station conducting the contest, but need not be enumerated each time an announcement promoting the contest is broadcast. Disclosure of material terms in a reasonable number of announcements is sufficient. In addition to the required broadcast announcements, disclosure of the material terms may be made in a non-broadcast manner.

Wing Bowl rules do not appear on 610WIP’s web site. The Wing Bowl 16 page has “Official Rules for Wing Bowl 16” at the bottom, but there is no link or following information. I do not know how frequently WIP has announced Wing Bowl 16 eligibility restrictions on the air. We might get a chance to learn if the FCC views those restrictions as satisfactorily disclosed if an AICE eater files a new FCC complaint.

update GJoe’s FCC complaint mentioned in a previous comment is based on being excluded from a previous Wing Bowl, not the upcoming one.

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Curtis Sliwa is not the only competitive eater who works as a talk radio host. Adam “Hungry Hungry Hebrew” Taxin, who will attempt a Wing Bowl stunt competing against a dog on Tuesday, has a one hour radio show on Tuesday afternoon on WNWR. Frank Pastore, who set the Big Texan 72 ounce steak record of 9.5 minutes in 1987, has a Christian talk show in Los Angeles.

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The Major League Eating youtube page has been updated with two segments from the Tour de Gorge programs produced for HDNet. George Shea interviews Sonya Thomas before a meatball contest. Brian Seiken makes an appearance in the interview to discuss his dream about Sonya and Dale Boone. There is also footage from the 2004 Thanksgiving Invitational won by Badlands Booker in which Cookie Jarvis, “Hungry” Charles Hardy, Tim Janus, Don “Moses” Lerman, Brian Seiken, Dale Boone and others competed.

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The trailer for the “Eating Levi” documentary about Levi Oliver’s quest to win a tamale title is available on youtube. Badlands Booker, Tim “Eater X” Janus and others make cameos.

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The blog and database have been inaccessible for approximately the past 6 hours due to a server upgrade by bluehost, eatfeats’ web provider, but they now appear back online. (I do not know why the server could not have been upgraded starting at midnight to minimize the inconvenience)

Here are the links that were on the page announcing the blog was down:

Jill Stoler has a trip report from Japan on her blog
Hungry Sisters have posted their 2008 goals in competitive eating
610WIP.com has a gallery of Philly Guy aka Sticky Pete’s Wing Bowl qualification attempt
Takeru Kobayashi has a blog entry about his trip to the doctor to deal with his "jawthrithis"

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Rich Shea’s interview on the January 5 Phantom Gourmet radio show mentioned by GJoe in a comment is available online. The interview is mainly about the buffet controversy in Louisiana, but Rich Shea does say that the next IFOCE event will be a Major League Eating program televised on Spike TV at halftime of the Super Bowl (Rich predicts that the Cowboys will be the NFC representative for that game). The program will be 30 minutes long, so “Ham & Eggs” will need to be truncated if it is broadcast.

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Youtube has a brief clip from the 1996 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest finals in which Ed Krachie edged out Mike DeVito, 22 hot dogs to 20.

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Philly.com’s Wing Bowl page has a video of “Humble” Bob Shoudt’s qualification stunt of eating 53 hard boiled eggs in under 15 minutes. 610WIP.com has a gallery of the stunt. “Humble” Bob wore a Krystal T-shirt which said “I like my Krystals like my women, by the dozen” and had a Krystal Square Off cup.

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Here are the top 10 money winners in competitive eating based on currently known information. Prizes for the Vegas Chowdown are not included, as the money breakdown for those contests have not been listed:

All other money winning competitive eaters I am aware of are listed after the jump
Read the rest of this entry »

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The clip from G4TV’s “Code Monkeys” featuring a fantasy about an eating contest versus “Kobatashi” can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd82f5p9QvE

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AICE news reports that a team consisting of Takuya Yamamoto, Tomoko Miyake and Saori Nakayama will compete against an American team at the World’s Biggest Burger Team Eating Championship. Tomoko Miyake’s blog reports that she apparently began practicing for that contest by attempting the “Dream Burger” challenge of eating a 4kg hamburger in less than 40 minutes. A video of Ms. Miyake’s attempt can be seen on stage6.com. She managed to finish about two thirds of the burger before time elapsed.

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There are two competitive eating themed entries in two recent lists of awards for 2007:

From Japan Times:

Most Unappetizing TV Personality: Gal Sone

She’s the first competitive eating star to parlay her avocation into a livelihood as a tarento, which means on variety shows she has to talk about her skills as a big eater. But testimonials for her favorite brand of toilet paper and explications of her six or seven daily bowel movements are not things we need to hear, especially right after she’s put away 5 kg of curry rice.

From 411Mania’s pro wrestling list:

Worst Promo = PACMAN Jones’s introduction.

Actually, I think I voted the Matt Hardy/MVP Pizza-Eating Contest first, but it didn’t count since it was more of a ‘skit’ than a ‘promo’.

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The new poll asks when you believe the “Ham & Eggs” contest produced for Spike TV will be televised.

According to Crazy Legs Conti’s most recent blog entry, that program was expected to be broadcast last month:

Thursday, October 18th Spike TV 11 PM EST “Wedges and Wings”

This is the first broadcast in a three part championship series on Spike TV. One show per month for the next three months will air.

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Takuya Yamamoto is probably the first Japanese competitive eater to set up a youtube page. His first video is not from an eating contest but features his dancing.

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Beautiful Brian announces that the first 2008 episode of his TV show will have four guests: Jill Stoler, Mike DeVito and Ed Krachie, both Nathan’s winners from the 1990s, and someone resembling Dale Boone with long hair. If Mike Devito, the former commisioner of the IFOCE, still has connections with the management of that organization, perhaps he can provide some insight on the recent dearth of contests.

BeautifulBrian.com also 6 songs from the holiday album remixed for your listening pleasure

update the full album (10 songs) is now available.

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Juris “Dr. Big Time” Shibayama has started a personal website at http://doctorbigtime.com with a page devoted to competitive eating.

There have been a lot of recent changes for Japanese websites. Sakura Takahashi has moved to miotakahashi.net Tomoko Miyake, Saori Nakayama and Kana Kanisawa have all moved their blogs to new URLS (See sidebar for links)

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Happy New Year. To start 2008, I have compiled an estimation of what the final IFOCE point standings for the previous year would be if they were not discontinued. The following assumptions were made:

• Due to the lack of complete IFOCE results, standings were obtained from competitors’ (most notably “Wild” Bill Myers) reports. Please inform me of any incorrect results.
• Since the breakdown for a 100 point contest was never released, the points for a 50 point contest were basically doubled to obtain a 100 point distribution. The only 100 point contests were the Nathan’s and Krystal finals.
• No points were awarded for any other contest with closed entrance (the Vegas Chowdown & the ramen contest) since no points were awarded for the Wing Bowl or the St. Pat’s Chowdown.

• 50 points were awarded for all other non-qualifier contests, 25 points for qualifiers. There was a 15 point level when IFOCE points were announced, but no contests received that total before points standings were dropped.

The top 10 in points follows:

All other eaters who received points appear after the jump
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Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane has added a counter to the sidebar of his blog counting the time elapsed since the most recent IFOCE contest with open admission was announced. He believes this last occurred when the grits contest in Bossier City, LA appeared on the IFOCE schedule on September 11. The counter is currently at 110 days.

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The online video site stage6.com has clips from several Japanese competitive eating programs I have not seen before. In one program, Tomoko Miyake’s buffet club goes to a restaurant and is weighed on a large group scale before they start eating. The inital weight of the five diners is 226.8 kg (499 lb). After they complete their meal, the new combined weight is 249.6 kg (549 lb), a weight gain of about 50 pounds, or 10 pounds per person.

Other videos include:

Sakura Takahashi eating more than 15 pounds of noodles

Kana Kanisawa completing several eating challenges

Tomoko Miyake defeating a pajama clad oppenent in a karaoke duel

Takuya Yamamoto finishing a large bowl of noodles.

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A listing of all IFOCE contests in the eatfeats database held in November or December follows after the jump. Even though the winter is often called the IFOCE “offseason”, there has been at least three contests in the last two months of the previous four years.

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Youtube has a parody about a collegiate competitive eater called “Gertrude’s Game”: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

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A video by Dave & Dave produced for WQED, the Pittsburgh public television station, about last January’s Wing Championship Series can be viewed at http://mediathatchangeslives.com/ondemand/onq.php?id=44 Ian Hickman and Joe “Heat Miser” Menchetti make appearances along with a lot of Pittsburgh area competitive eaters.

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A news video about this year’s mince pie eating contest at Wookey Hole in England is available on youtube. Sonya Thomas’ victory in the 2006 contest makes a brief appearance. The clip contains what is probably the first documented use of a chain saw by a pirate in an eating contest.

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tv.co.yahoo.jp reports that the AICE vs. Japan series of contests will be televised on Nippon Television between 3pm and 9pm (Tokyo time) on New Year’s Day. The automatically translated description for the program follows:

first-ever tournament! Japan and the United States battle against eating gal Sone vs America “pizza face” is the winner?

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In a recent blog entry, Don “Moses” Lerman announces the following plans:

I “m tyring to put together a few contests one which will be the prestigious Lerman cup at the Don Lerman invitational cup a date to be announced and location to be reveled at a later time . so stand by .

The new poll asks what businessperson would make the best founder of a new competitive eating organization.

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