Top dog Joey Chestnut beats his archrival and his own hot dog-eating world record

Glizzy-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).

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.”

The rematch was over a decade in the making

The “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.

But the underdog eventually became a household name: Chestnut beat Kobayashi three years in a row — including once in a sudden-death “eat-off” — and emerged victorious in all but one subsequent contest, at least until this summer.

Kobayashi parted ways with Major League Eating (MLE) — the governing organization now beefing with Chestnut — in 2010 over a contract dispute, but has continued racking up world records in other competitions.

Tens of thousands of hot dogs later, Kobayashi, 46, announced his retirement earlier this year — but confirmed over the summer that he would only retreat after defeating Chestnut “one last time.”

Chestnut, for his part, welcomed the challenge. In a pre-recorded video that played ahead of Monday’s competition, he pointed to his previous wins against Kobayashi and declared, “In the discipline of hot dogs, I had his number.”

“I’m trying to prove I’m the best,” Chestnut added. “He might want to win really, really, really bad. I need to win.”

And Chestnut did. He scarfed down 83 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes — besting his own world record of 76, which he set at Coney Island in 2021. Kobayashi finished with a total of 66, beating his previous best of 64.5 from 2009.

After the competition, Kobayashi officially announced his retirement, saying, “I’ve put everything on the line for this.”

But in the same video clip shared by Netflix, Chestnut said he thinks it “highly unlikely” that he won’t face off against Kobayashi again.

“He made a personal best,” Chestnut added. “Nobody wants to go out on a loss. I’m hungry for whatever’s next.”

Chestnut was forced to adjust his technique, but it paid off

The event, hosted by actor Rob Riggle and former WWE wrestler Nikki Garcia (formerly professionally known as Nikki Bella), unfolded in Las Vegas with much fanfare.

Poolside, a pep band, with members wearing “Team Joey” and “Team Kobi” T-shirts, played DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win,” while several other competitors got viewers warmed up with feats of their own.

Matt Stonie — who broke Chestnut’s Coney Island winning streak in 2015 — battled three Olympians in a chicken wing contest. He ate 53 wings in three minutes, besting the combined efforts of water polo player Max Irving and swimmers Ryan Lochte and Ryan Murphy, who put down 36.

Next up was 24-time Guinness World Record holder Leah Shutkever, who earned another spot in the books for eating over 2,000 grams (more than four pounds) of watermelon in three minutes.

Nearly an hour into the special, the men nicknamed “Jaws” and “Tsunami” finally took to the stage and set up their stations.

Crucially, one of the rules of the contest forbade competitors from dunking the hot dogs in water, a signature part of Chestnut’s technique (drinking water out of cups was allowed — though most of it ended up on contestants’ shirts). But that didn’t seem to slow him down — quite the opposite.

“When I first heard the rules about no dunking I was really worried, but then I learned how to eat them like this,” Chestnut said after his victory. “And any other hot dog contest I do I’m going to eat some of them without dunking — this was amazing.”

Chestnut and Kobayashi started the contest evenly paced, though Chestnut had a slight edge after the first minute that only continued to widen. By the halfway mark, he was leading Kobayashi 51 to 44.

And he ate his record-breaking 77th hot dog with a luxurious minute and 10 seconds still to go (at which point Kobayashi was at 63).

“He might have a pained look on his face, but he is all smiles and hot dogs on the inside,” cheered one of the commentators.

Once the score was verified — a process that included checking the men’s shoe bottoms for any crumbs they may have stepped on to sneakily try to hide leftovers — Chestnut was officially crowned the top dog.

He received a golden hot dog statuette, a $100,000 prize and a bedazzled WWE championship belt, presented by wrestler Rey Mysterio.

It was one of many nods to the fact that the WWE “Raw,” its flagship weekly program, is coming to Netflix in 2025 (the streaming service is also touting upcoming live events like a Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing event in November and several consecutive NFL Christmas games starting this year).

As a water-drenched Kobayashi looked on, Chestnut gave him credit — for his own win.

“I’ve been trying to hit 80 hot dogs for years, and without Kobayashi, I was never able to do it,” he said onstage. “He drives me. We weren’t always nice to each other, but I love the way we push each other to be our best.”

Copyright 2024 NPR