Longstanding beef has finally been squashed.
Eaten, actually.
Joey Chestnut defeated Takeru Kobayashi in a one-on-one hot dog eating contest Sunday afternoon at the Hyper X Arena in Las Vegas.
Chestnut consumed 83 dogs — beating his world record of 76 in 2022 — to Kobayashi’s 66 in 10 minutes.
“This is amazing,” Chestnut said afterward. “I’ve been trying to hit 80 hot dogs for years. Without Kobayashi, I was never able to do it. He drives me. We weren’t always nice to each other, but I love the way we push each other to be our best.”
The head-to-head showdown, which was streamed live on Netflix, between the fierce rivals — largely considered the two best competitive eaters in the world — was 15 years in the making.
The last time they met was in the 2009 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, when Chestnut beat Kobayashi after a five-dog sudden death.
The two were atop competitive eating for a generation.
Chestnut won 16 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contests, while Kobayashi, who said Monday that he “did everything I could,” won six.
But this matchup was separate from the famous event on Coney Island.
Kobayashi was banned by Major League Eating in 2010 after a contractual dispute, and Chestnut was banned from the Nathan’s contest after signing an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods.
Chestnut and Kobayashi were not allowed to separate the hot dog from the bun or dip either in water, a departure from what is allowed at Nathan’s contest.
It doesn’t matter, however.
Chestnut is the hot dog king.
“When I first heard the rules about no dunking, I was really worried,” Chestnut said. “But then I learned how to eat them like this. Any other hot dog eating contest I do, I’m gonna be eating some of them without dunking. This was amazing.”
In an undercard battle, competitive eater Matt Stonie smoked a team of three Olympians — Ryan Locate, Ryan Murphy and Max Irving — by eating a ridiculous 53 chicken wings in three minutes to their combined 36.
Leah Shutkever added a 35th Guinness World Record to her ledger, taking down an astounding 2000.56 grams of watermelon in 2:30 — besting the previous mark of 1,750 grams, done in three minutes.
