Joey Chestnut ate 83 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes onstage in Las Vegas for a live Netflix event on Monday. His longtime rival, Takeru Kobayashi, ate 66. David Becker/Getty Images for Netflix hide caption
toggle caption David Becker/Getty Images for NetflixGlizzy-guzzling champion Joey Chestnut has done it again.
The world’s number-one-ranked eater defeated not only his archrival but his own world record when he downed a whopping 83 hot dogs in buns in 10 minutes during a much-hyped showdown on Monday.
Chestnut made headlines earlier this summer when he was banned from the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest for signing an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods, a company that makes plant-based meat alternatives (including, yes, soy protein hot dogs).
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National Hot dog-eating champ Joey Chestnut won't compete this July 4. What’s the beef?
It was a stunning turn of events for Chestnut, who has become synonymous with the Coney Island contest. He’s won it 16 times since 2007 — the first year he defeated then-reigning champion Takeru Kobayashi.
Chestnut vowed fans would see him eat again, and didn’t wait long to deliver. He held a competing July 4th hot dog contest at the Fort Bliss Army base in Texas, downing 57 hot dogs in five minutes to beat a team of four soldiers who collectively managed 49.
But the real drama unfolded on Monday, when Chestnut and Kobayashi faced off for the first time in 15 years in a live-streamed Netflix event called “Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef.”
Takeru Kobayashi and champion Joey Chestnut look on at the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest official weigh-in ceremony in July 2009. That was the last year they competed against each other, until Monday. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Mario Tama/Getty ImagesThe “wiener-takes-all” competition, announced just days after Chestnut’s Coney Island suspension in June, brought together the biggest rivals in the hot-dog-eating universe.
Kobayashi, 46, rose to fame as a competitive eater in his native Japan before bringing his talents stateside in the early aughts. He is credited with popularizing the sport in the U.S. and getting competitors, viewers and sponsors to take events like Coney Island seriously.
The man nicknamed “the Godfather of Competitive Eating” won that hallowed contest six years in a row, including beating Chestnut twice.