Full results (10 minutes)

James Webb is running a livestream of today’s Norms Hotcake Eating Championship in Las Vegas.

PermalinkComments (6)

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.

PermalinkComments

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)

TVLine announces that there will be two undercard competitions for “Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef” that will be streamed on Netflix from Las Vegas on September 2: Matt Stonie and Leah Shutkever will face off against opponents who have yet to be named. This will be Matt Stonie’s first public eating competition since a Draft Kings event in April 2021 and Leah Shutkever’s first public competition since the Highway 55 burger eating contest in June 2018. The broadcast co-hosts will be actor/comedian Rob Riggle and WWE Hall of Famer Nikki Garcia. Cari Champion and Chris Rose will be the announcers for the competitions.

PermalinkComments (6)

James Webb is running a live video of today’s Siegel’s Bagelmania eating contest in Las Vegas

Official results: (8 minutes)

PermalinkComments (4)