Merry Christmas. A list of holiday food eating videos produced by competitive eaters follows:

• Meredith Boxberger 3 Pound Sweet Potato
• Ben Do Fruit Cake, Cranberry Sauce & Egg Nog
• Jamie McDonald One gallon egg nog | A Christmas Story meal (4.5 lb meat loaf, 4 lb. mashed potatoes, 2.5 sugar cookies)
• Naader Reda Can of Pumpkin @ Whipped Cream in reverse
• Matt Stonie 3.5 lb. Holiday Fruitcake

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Some recent Thanksgiving themed videos by competitive eaters

• Johnnie Excel – 9 Pound Vegan Thanksgiving feast
• Naader Reda – Thanksgiving message
• Matt Stonie – 20 pound turkey | blended turkey, gravy & cranberry chug

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update Nov 1 NotoriousBob.net has a quote that did not appear in the article

update Oct 31 Some observations and links about the article follow:

• Ronson asserts that the 1916 origin story for Nathan’s hot dog eating contest is “(almost certainly) untrue”, which Mortimer Matz, Nathan’s promoter of the 1970s and 80s confirmed in a 2010 NY Times interview. The claim that the first contest took place on July 4, 1972 is incorrect; a contest was held on Memorial Day weekend of that year and a competition took place in 1967 to honor the centennial of the hot dog.
• 2009 is listed as the year of Takeru Kobayashi’s final IFOCE sanctioned contest. He competed against Joey Chestnut in a contest in Singapore in May 2010.
• Emcee Dave Keating says that the cupcakes used in the shortened cupcake contest were lighter than those used in 2011, which explains why 7th place finishers Maria “Edible” and Michelle “Cardboard Shell” Lesco ate more in 6 minutes (48) than the previous year’s winner Tim Janus ate in 8 minutes (42). (Video of the contest).

If you need something to read due to Hurricane Sandy related disruptions, Jon Ronson’s article about competitive eating for the November 2012 issue of GQ is now available online. The article includes mini profiles of Joey Chestnut, Pat Bertoletti, Matt Stonie, Bob Shoudt and Maria “Edible” and contains reports from the Nathan’s finals, TooJay’s corned beef sandwich eating contest, and a behind the scenes look at the shortened cupcake contest held at the Isle of Capri casino in Waterloo, Iowa where Bob Shoudt offered these thoughts on cheating:

“I’ve seen everything,” he says. “People throwing hot dogs under the table. People making the biggest messes you can imagine.”

My eyes widen. “So there’s such a mess under the table it’s impossible to determine what counts as an eaten thing?” I ask.

“Oh, there’s techniques,” says Bob. “People suddenly get happy feet.” He mimes an eater dropping an item of food and then covertly stamping it into the ground. I’m appalled. Cheating makes everything pointless. And then Bob confesses that—if need be—he will be one of those cheaters. When his wife is in the crowd, they use pre-arranged signals. “If the eaters are dropping stuff like crazy, she’ll give a meaningless cheer. I’ll understand. Suddenly the food gets very slippery for me.”

He gives me a look that says: Don’t judge me until you’ve walked in my shoes. Leave the Gandhi-like behavior to the fools who don’t mind losing to the cheaters.

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A list of head to head results for Pat Bertoletti and Matt Stonie follows after the jump. Matt Stonie has finished ahead of Pat Bertoletti in the last two contests they have competed in after Pat finished ahead in 8 of the previous 9 contests. The new poll asks who you think should be #2 in the next IFOCE top 50. Read the rest of this entry »

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update July 17 Matt Stonie has a facebook gallery. Kooky Canuck also has a facebook gallery

update July 15 Contest reports DJournal | WTVA

Full results Part 2 | Part 3 have been added

update Jamie McDonald has the top 4:

1) Matt Stonie 30
2) Adrian Morgan 24
3) Jamie McDonald 23.75
4) Juan Rodriguez 23.5
5) Kevin “LA Beast” Strahle 18
6) Jeremy Smith 9 (2011 winner)
7) Thomas Jones 7
8) Ashley McKinnon 4.5

WCBI news reports that Matt Stonie won today’s eating contest held at the Slugburger Festival in Corinth, MS for his first victory in a MLE non-qualifier (or exhibition).

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General contest links

• Alt.variety contest report
• Slate.com column about Mayor Bloomberg’s apparent hypocrisy
• Piers Morgan of CNN blog entry
• Major League Eating recap video
• AFP contest videos in French | Spanish | Portuguese | Japanese
• Village Voice gallery
• Flickr galleries: helenofzuo | branko (not safe for work)
• Katina Wrocki line drawings

Competitor-specific links

• Joey Chestnut interview on 1090 San Diego: transcript | podcast (Joey reiterates his criticisms of Kobayashi he has made previously.)
• Sean Gordon podcast on the Man Cave Podcast. (Sean describes his disqualification from a 2008 Nathan’s qualifier)
• Pete Davekos podcast on ballhogs radio
• Matt Stonie gallery | Vlog Part 1 | Part 2
• Meredith Boxberger vlog Part 1 | Part 2

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• Appearance of Joey Chestnut and Sonya Thomas on NBC’s Today yesterday
• CNN’s Eatocracy explains competitive eating terminology
• Guardian (UK) contest report
• Yahoo! Chompions blog entry
• Daily Mail carries the AP article with a lot of pictures
• Buzzfeed has a gallery titled “The 15 Disgusting Faces Of The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest”
• Awful Announcing has commentary on the ESPN telecast
• The Kooky Canuck owner attended the finals and has a facebook gallery
• The Baltimore Sun has a gallery
• Driven by Boredom has galleries of the contest and afterparty
• Deadspin has a blog entry about post contest elimation. (A comment states that most elimination is done via vomiting and that a top 3 MLE eater required hospitalization after a training session went wrong (the commenter claims to be a friend of the hospitalized competitor’s girlfriend))
• The NY Times NBA blog has an entry about Brooklyn Net Marshon Brooks serving as a contest judge
• Ken Hoffman has an article about serving as Matt Stonie’s judge. The Houston Chronicle columnist claims that a piece of Joey Chestnut’s hot dog flew into his mouth. )
• Mercy for Animals has a blog entry about their contest protest
• Flickr gallery by EKavet
• Matt Stonie facebook gallery
• SeaCoast Online article about Matt Stonie
• Barrie Examiner article about Meredith Boxberger.

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After yesterday’s qualifier victory, Matt Stonie became the 8th person to eat 40 or more hot dogs in a Nathan’s contest. 40+ personal bests:

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update June 27 Matt Stonie has a gallery and training video
Matt Stonie’s performance resulted in Muff from Boston Drunks retirement from competitive eating
Boston.com has a gallery

update June 24 The Boston Herald has an article w/video (via comment)

Results (Part 1 | Part 2)

1) Matt Stonie 42 hot dogs
2) Justin Mih 16.5
3) “Wild” Bill Myers 14
4) Bob O’Neil 10
5) Joao Paulo 9

1W) Mia “Meatballz” Davekos 8

Matt Stonie was the male winner of today’s Nathan’s qualifier in Boston with a total of 42 hot dogs. Matt had to compete in a different area from the other competitors because the contest area was in the beer zone.

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