Jodi Walker wrote a long article (or short book?) for Ringer.com about the “Unfinished Beef” matchup between Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi that was streamed on Netflix on Labor Day. There will probably not that much new in it for people familiar with competitive eating other that some behind the scenes information about how the event was put togther. Nicole Haimes, director of the 2019 documentary about the Chestnut / Kobayashi rivalry “The Good, the Bad, the Hungry” was also the executive producer of “Unfinished Beef”.

But there was still one speed bump: “When negotiating for this whole thing, Chestnut and I with Netflix, we were talking about the possibility of doing this on Fourth of July,” Kobayashi tells me. That would have meant not competing in the Nathan’s competition in 2023, which Joey refused to do (62 hot dogs in 10 minutes). “So I thought, well, if he doesn’t have respect for me, then I don’t think I want to compete against him,” says Kobayashi. Haimes fortunately managed to rope him back into the deal with Netflix by suggesting that they couldn’t “let the perfect get in the way of the good.” Kobayashi relented and even said that Chestnut could compete in the Nathan’s contest in 2024 if he wanted. They would simply find a different (slightly less patriotic) date for their one-on-one. “But then he was banned from the Nathan’s competition, ironically,” Kobi smirks.

After MLE contracts worked against them for years, a contract dispute finally worked in their favor. Kobi and Joey were at Netflix. And people were excited.

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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.

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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 »

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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.”

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Netflix announced that Joey Chestnut will face off against Takeru Kobayashi in “Unfinished Beef”, a matchup that will be streamed on Labor Day, September 2. The competition will use beef frankfurters. Hollywood Reporter has an article about the program with the following quote from Takeru Kobayashi:

Retiring for me will only happen after I take him down one last time. This rivalry has been brewing for a long time. Competing against Joey live on Netflix means fans all over the world can watch me knock him out.

flashback July 2022 In an interview on the Pardon My Take podcast, Joey Chestnut expressed a desire to compete against Takeru Kobayashi.

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Takeru Kobayashi is one of four subjects in the new Netflix documentary, “Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut”. His segment focuses on his inability to feel hunger after a 20 year competitive eating career. He decides to retire from eating contests to improve his gastrointestinal health: (youtube trailer) (transcript)

After analyzing Kobayashi’s poop and also performing other tests, including scanning his brain’s responses to images of different foods, doctors informed him that his microbiome was actually in good shape, but his brain scans were abnormal. This revelation means that getting to the bottom of Kobayashi’s lack of hunger will be more complex, and in order to focus on restoring his health, he’s decided to quit competitive eating. He has “mixed feelings” about it, but after years of ignoring his body’s signals, he’s eager to see if he can repair his gut-brain connection.

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In the latest episode of Barstool Sports Pardon my Take podcast, Joey Chestnut announces that his MLE contract will expire at the end of this year and he is open to the possibility of a matchup with Takeru Kobayashi in 2023. (video clip)

The end of this year is going to be a weird year for me because my contract with Major League Eating and Nathan’s is going to be over. So it’ll be my first year in a long, long time that I can actually eat against Kobayashi. So me and him could find a way to compete because he’ll never compete with Major League Eating again because they have just a childish contract dispute, but there’s a chance that I might be able to eat against him.

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It is interesting that even after declining a MLE contract extension, Joey Chestnut still calls Takeru Kobayshi’s schism with the organization a “childish contract dispute”.

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