EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — Joey Chestnut ate a total of 57 hot dogs, outeating a team of four Fort Bliss soldiers, in a five-minute hot dog eating contest, at Biggs Park at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas on Thursday.
Every year since 2005, Chestnut has competed in the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. This year, the 16-time champion missed out on the event in Coney Island, NY because he was banned from the 2024 competition due to having a sponsorship deal with Impossible Foods, a rival company of Nathan’s.
In his first hot dog eating contest since being banned from this year’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest by Major League Eating, Chestnut took part in a hot dog eating contest in El Paso instead of Coney Island.
Chestnut ate 57 hot dogs in five minutes, beating the team of four Fort Bliss soldiers who ate a combined 49 hot dogs.
“I think [beating Joey Chestnut in a hot dog eating contest] is physically impossible,” Joey Shook, a U.S. Army specialist and member of the four-soldier team that lost to Chestnut, said. “I feel like I have a better chance of beating LeBron James in a one-on-one in basketball, than beating Joey Chestnut in an eating competition.”
“It was awesome. I was able to keep pushing all five minutes. Dude, 57, is pretty good,” Chestnut said. “This has been great. Hanging out with the soldiers yesterday and today. I love eating but I love celebrating the Fourth of July, so this has been really, really fun.”
A total of 106 hot dogs were eaten between Chestnut and the four Fort Bliss soldiers. That led to $106,000 being raised and donated to military families.
Chestnut eating 57 hot dogs in five minutes led to a lot, and I mean a lot, of people wondering what he may have been able to do in ten minutes at the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. Chestnut came up one hot dog short of tying Patrick Bertoletti’s winning performance in this year’s competition in Coney Island. Bertoletti ate 58 hot dogs in ten minutes.
Up next for Chestnut this summer: a hot dog eating contest against fellow former Nathan’s champion, Takeru Kobayashi, on September 2nd that will be streamed on Netflix.
“Kobayashi, is an animal, probably the only other person as crazy as me,” Chestnut said. “The rules are going to be a bit different: No dunking. So, I am going to have to find a different technique to beat him but it’s going to be fun.”
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