Munchies.vice.com has an interview with Joey Chestnut about his eating techniques for various foods. In the steak section, he says the following about Molly Schuyler:

A lot of women can really eat—[competitive eater] Molly [Schuyler]’s nuts. She goes straight animal. I’ve never eaten a steak like that. She broke my record at the Big Texan. I just use a fork and knife. I didn’t even know you could eat a steak like that, but she went straight wolf. She tore through it like butter. It was insane. I don’t steal techniques from people, but we all borrow and try to enhance techniques from each other.”

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update Jul 6 Brian Dudzinski has a video talking about the invasion of the left side of the stage. Fake blood was thrown on his food and his & Noelle Morgan’s son was knocked over.

update Jul 5 “Sentiocentrist” admitted throwing blood in this instagram caption. Dan “Big Cat” Katz said he will seek legal action following the admission.

The group Direct Action Everywhere has taken credit for and produced a video of their stage invasion of the Nathan’s finals at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3YViml5lXo. First a woman climbs on stage and throws fake blood on Crazy Legs Conti (Dan “Big Cat” Katz also gets hit). During the commotion, a blonde woman and two males climb on stage. The Daily Mail has an article about the incursion.

Here are some screen captures of the assault (click on images for full size). If have archived the video in case it gets deleted.

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There are 472 contests from July 1-4, 2016 listed in the calendar. Here are how the 423 contests in the USA break down by state.

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Here are the MLE rankings at the end of the 2nd quarter of 2016. (Ranking system description). Joey Chestnut’s 73 hot dogs in the DC qualifier gave him the best hot dog total over the past 365 days and put him into a tie with with Matt Stonie. The head to head comparisons can be found after the rankings.

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Pages 58-61 from “Eat This Book” about the “history” of Nathan’s Famous eating contest can be viewed below (click on pages to enlarge) or by using Google Books. The section treats the 1916 origin story as a historical fact instead of an “urban legend”.

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On twitter, Juan “More Bite” Rodriguez accuses Erik “The Red Denmark” of “Pocket Dog Gate”. While Carmen Cincotti’s video shows Erik Denmark inserting his hand in his pocket immediately following the Nathan’s Washington, DC qualifier (around the 14:20 mark), it is not 100% clear if he had a hot dog in his hand. Denmark was credited with 32 hot dogs for the contest, which edged out Steve Hendry by one hot dog for the wild card.

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Sports Illustrated has a long article on the state of Kobayashi’s post-MLE career and the devolution of his relationship with that organizaion. He is unwilling to go near Nathan’s Coney Island store despite living in Brooklyn. The article mentions plans for a big Chicago eating contest this year that fell through. Pat Bertoletti makes a cameo:
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Here are the personal bests for the past year for people who competed in the 2015-16 Nathan’s qualifier circuit. Steve Hendry did not receive a finals spot despite having the 7th best overall total. Carmen Cincotti’s surprise performance prevented the 2015-16 qualifier circuit from having no 40+ totals for the first time since 2004-5. (The leftmost column does not take ties into account.)

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