{"id":12652,"date":"2025-07-04T16:03:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T16:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=12652"},"modified":"2025-07-04T16:03:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T16:03:38","slug":"joey-chestnut-hopes-for-comeback-victory-in-nathans-famous-hot-dog-eating-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=12652","title":{"rendered":"Joey Chestnut hopes for comeback victory in Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

NEW YORK — <\/span>The Nathan\u2019s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest is back, and famed competitive eater Joey \u201cJaws\u201d Chestnut is hoping for a comeback<\/a> 17th win on Friday.<\/p>\n

The 41-year-old, from Westfield, Indiana, was not in<\/a> last year’s event due to a contract dispute involving a deal he struck with a competing brand, the plant-based meat company Impossible Foods. But now he’s back, saying things have been ironed out.<\/p>\n

Patrick Bertoletti, of Chicago, won the title in Chestnut’s absence and is the defending men’s champion.<\/p>\n

Defending champion Miki Sudo, 39, of Tampa, Florida, won the women’s competition and her 11th title on Friday, downing 33 dogs and buns. Last year, she consumed a record 51 dogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I let the fans down a little bit. I heard people in the crowd saying, \u2018Go for 52,\u2019\u201d Sudo told ESPN. \u201cObviously, I\u2019m always setting my goals high, but the hot dogs weren\u2019t cooperating. For some reason, the buns felt larger today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The annual gastronomic battle, which dates back to 1972, is held in front of the original Nathan\u2019s Famous\u2019 restaurant at New York’s Coney Island and draws large crowds of fans, many in foam hot dog hats.<\/p>\n

Competitors in the men’s and women’s categories chow down as many hot dogs as possible in 10 minutes. They are allowed to dunk the dogs in cups of water to soften them up, creating a stomach-churning spectacle.<\/p>\n

The 15 men in the competition hail from across the U.S. and internationally, including Australia, Czech Republic, Canada, England and Brazil.<\/p>\n

The 13 women competitors are all Americans.<\/p>\n

Chestnut set the world record of eating 76 wieners and buns in 10 minutes on July 4, 2021. He has won a record 16 Mustard Belts. Instead of appearing in New York last year, Chestnut ate 57 dogs \u2014 in only five minutes \u2014 in an exhibition with soldiers, in El Paso, Texas.<\/p>\n

Chestnut told The Associated Press last month that while he was happy to compete at that event, he was \u201creally happy to be back at Coney Island.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chestnut said he had never appeared in any commercials for Impossible Foods’ vegan hot dogs and that Nathan\u2019s is the only hot dog company he has worked with. But he acknowledged he \u201cshould have made that more clear with Nathan\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — The Nathan\u2019s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest is back, and famed competitive eater Joey \u201cJaws\u201d Chestnut is hoping for a comeback 17th win on Friday. The 41-year-old, from Westfield, Indiana, was not in last year’s event due to a contract dispute involving a deal he struck with a competing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12654,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12652\/revisions\/12654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}