Joey Chestnut has defeated Kobayashi 83 hot dogs to 67 to set a world record for a 10 minute hot dog contest.

In the first undercard, Matt Stonie defeated three aquatic Olympians (Ryan Lochte, Ryan Murphy and Max Irving) in a 3 minute wing eating contest, 53 wings to 36.

Some links about Unfinished Beef
Decider has an interview with Takeru Kobayashi
Brobible has an interview with Chestnut and Kobayashi
NYTimes article

Netflix has an instagram post about the Chestnut / Kobayashi rivalry with two major errors: Kobayashi did not reverse in the 2007 Krystal Square Off, he missed it due to “jawthritis” and Kobayashi did not compete in the 2010 Nathan’s finals, he attended as a spectator and was arrested afterwards.

PermalinkComments (28)

Here are the all time head to head results for Joey Chestnut vs. Takeru Kobayashi. They have faced 15 times from 2005 to 2010; Kobayashi finished ahead in 8 of the matchups. (This excludes the 2005 US Open of Competitive Eating, a 32 entrant tournament won by Kobayashi in which he did not face Chestnut.)
Read the rest of this entry »

PermalinkComments

The Guardian has a long interview with Takeru Kobayashi about facing off against Joey Chestnut in a hot dog eating contest on Netflix on September 2. He believes the event will be his final competition.

Will September’s bout with Chestnut be Kobayashi’s last? He has to believe it will be. “Unless I think each match is my last one, I will not be able to perform at my peak level.” But he is enjoying the thrill of competing again. “When you do something for a really long time, you start to lose the magic that you felt initially,” he says. “This has really brought back the feeling of how much fun it is to push yourself.”

PermalinkComments (14)

For National Hot Dog Day on July 17, Joey Chestnut did interviews for The Daily Meal, Mashed, People and BroBible.

In the Daily Meal interview he discusses the breakdown of his relationship with Major League Eating
Read the rest of this entry »

PermalinkComments (4)

The Major League Eating Top 50 has been updated. Joey Chestnut remains #1 despite his estrangement from the organization. Nathan’s winner Pat Bertoletti jumps to #2. The new top 10

1. Joey Chestnut (previously #1)
2. Pat Bertoletti (#9)
3. Geoff Esper (#2)
4. James Webb (#5)
5. Miki Sudo (#3)
6. Nick Wehry (#4)
7. Gideon Oji (#6)
8. Derek Hendrickson (#8)
9. Michelle Lesco (#10)
10. Darrien Thomas (#12)

Entering

• 13 Sean Yeager
• 16 Max Stanford (fixed)
• 38 Radim Dvoracek
• 45 Joey Przybylowicz
• 47 Cherish Brown
• 48 Julie Goldberg

leaving

• 16 Darron Breeden
• 28 Juan Rodriguez
• 30 Sarah Rodriguez
• 46 Brian Dudzinski
• 48 Kathryn Tesch
• 50 Doug Ecks

Notable omissions: Takuya Yamomoto, William Lyon, Max Stanford, Yasir Salem, Kylan Lee, Tandra Childress

PermalinkComments (13)

Joey Chestnut did an interview with Sports Illustrated about his estrangement from MLE

SI: So you felt blindsided? This was just out there, and it wasn’t something you’d known would happen when you signed with Impossible, and it wasn’t something you’d heard about from the Shea brothers or Major League Eating?

JC: Absolutely not. Everything with Impossible was perfectly fine by all my previous agreements. They changed terms and conditions [around] exclusivity. And it’s not the first time they’ve changed some things, but it’s the first time they’ve really changed things after the fact, and I had to say, “Hey, it’s too late, I’ve already started working with this brand.” This was never an issue in the past. And they tried to dance around it—they changed a lot of terms, and then they escalated things to a degree they didn’t imagine when they started leaking information and telling people I was banned and that I turned vegan, which clearly isn’t the case.

SI: When was the last time you talked to the Shea brothers?

JC: They both sent me a little message saying, pretty much, that they’re sorry it got ugly. One of them said hopefully we can have beers in the future. But they’re not bad people, they’re just them, and that’s the way they are. I just—I didn’t expect it to go the way it did. I’m always willing to make concessions and willing to meet people in the middle. If I start something, I like to finish it, and if we started negotiating, I didn’t want to be sent away or banned. I thought we could finally get it. But it didn’t work out that way.

PermalinkComments (2)

Daily Mail has an interview with Joey Chestnut about his July 4 event at Fort Bliss in El Paso and his breakup with Major League Eating. He says he feels bullied by the organization and demands an apology to return to MLE events. He also discusses the possiblity of a Netflix hot dog eating contest on July 4, 2025.

However, he remains hopeful that he can get back to competing on July 4th next year, either with Netflix or at the Nathan’s Famous contest. For him to re-enter the Coney Island event though, he’d need to make up with the event organizers, Major League Eating.

‘I feel bullied,’ Chestnut shared. ‘If I’m ever going to work with them again, they’re going to have to apologize,’ Chestnut said.

According to a statement from spokesman George Shea, Major League Eating said it eventually conceded the sponsorship issue.

‘Unfortunately, this was not enough to get us to an agreement,’ the statement said. ‘We think this is a powerful tribute to our armed forces and we wish Joey the best of luck at his event.’

PermalinkComments (13)