He wasn't there. For the first time in nearly two decades, the most dominant athlete on the planet—and yeah, we’re calling him an athlete—was missing from the corner of Surf and Stillwell in Coney Island on July 4th, 2024. Joey Chestnut, the perennial hot dog contest winner, found himself on the outside looking in. It felt wrong. It felt like watching the Masters without Tiger in his prime or a Super Bowl where the star quarterback was benched over a contract dispute about... vegan franks?
Actually, that’s exactly what happened.
The world of competitive eating was rocked when Major League Eating (MLE) announced that Chestnut wouldn't be competing in the 2024 Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest. The reason? A partnership with Impossible Foods. It’s a weirdly modern conflict. You have the face of a beef-driven tradition signing a deal with a plant-based competitor. MLE called it a choice; Joey called it a "betrayal." While fans were used to seeing him crush 70+ dogs in ten minutes, they instead saw Patrick Bertoletti step up to take the "Mustard Belt" with 58 hot dogs.
The Evolution of a Hot Dog Contest Winner
To understand why this mattered so much, you have to look at what Chestnut did to the sport. Before Joey, there was Takeru Kobayashi. The Japanese powerhouse revolutionized the game in the early 2000s with the "Solomon Method," snapping dogs in half and dunking buns in water. He made competitive eating look like a science. Then came Joey.
Chestnut didn't just win; he colonized the sport.
He took the record from 50 to 60, then 70, then a mind-boggling 76 hot dogs and buns in 2021. When you think of a hot dog contest winner, you don't think of a person; you think of a machine. But he’s a guy from California who just happens to have an esophageal capacity that defies biological norms. He trains by stretching his stomach with milk, water, and protein supplements. It’s a grueling, somewhat gross, but undeniably disciplined regimen.
The 2024 absence of Chestnut created a vacuum. Patrick Bertoletti is a legend in his own right—a man who has held world records in everything from pickled jalapeños to blueberry pies—but the shadow of the 16-time champion loomed large over the 2024 stage. Bertoletti's 58 dogs was a massive achievement, yet it was nearly 20 dogs short of Chestnut’s peak. It changed the vibe. It went from a "witnessing greatness" event to a "who can grab the vacant throne" scrap.
Why the 2024 Results Felt Different
Usually, the Nathan’s contest is a foregone conclusion. You show up to see if Joey breaks his own record. Without him, the betting lines went haywire. Bertoletti, Geoffrey Esper, and James Webb were the names on everyone’s lips.
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Bertoletti’s win was emotional. He’s been in the game for years. He’s a chef by trade. Seeing a veteran finally secure the Mustard Belt after years of Chestnut’s dominance was a "nice guys finish first" moment, even if the "nice guy" in this scenario just consumed enough sodium to floor a horse. He averaged 5.8 hot dogs per minute. That’s fast. Really fast. But in the back of everyone’s mind, the question remained: what was Joey doing?
He was in El Paso.
While the official contest happened in New York, Chestnut was at Fort Bliss, competing in a 5-minute "Beef for the Brave" event. He ate 57 hot dogs in half the time the Nathan’s contestants had. It was a flex. A massive, mustard-covered middle finger to the organizational drama that kept him off the Coney Island stage. It proved that while he wasn't the "official" hot dog contest winner of Nathan’s in 2024, he was still the undisputed king of the discipline.
The Physical Toll Nobody Talks About
We love the spectacle. We love the counting clocks and the "Bunettes" holding up the numbers. But the actual physical reality of being a hot dog contest winner is terrifying.
Dr. Marc Levine from the University of Pennsylvania once did a fluoroscopy on a competitive eater’s stomach. He found that instead of contracting to move food along, the stomach simply expands into a giant, flaccid sac. It’s called gastroparesis, and it’s a real risk. Professional eaters literally train their brains to ignore the "satiety" signal—that feeling you get at Thanksgiving when you realize you shouldn't have had that third helping of stuffing.
Then there’s the water. Most winners don't just eat the meat; they "wet" the buns. This prevents the bread from expanding in the throat and makes it slide down faster. But it also introduces a massive amount of liquid into the system. It’s a delicate balance between speed, capacity, and not "reversing"—the polite term MLE uses for vomiting. If you "reverse" before the clock hits zero, you're disqualified. It’s the "Puke Record" rule.
Miki Sudo and the Women’s Division
We can't talk about winners without talking about Miki Sudo. While the men’s side was dealing with the Chestnut/Impossible Foods drama, Sudo was busy setting a new world record.
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She ate 51 hot dogs.
Sudo is, quite frankly, more consistent than almost any male eater in history. She has won the women’s title ten times. In 2024, she beat her own previous record of 48.5 dogs. Watching Sudo is different than watching the men’s side; there’s a rhythm to her movement that looks almost like a dance. She doesn't look like she's struggling. She looks like she’s at a very fast-paced brunch.
The gap between Sudo and the rest of the women’s field is often wider than the gap in the men’s field. She is the female Joey Chestnut, but without the sponsor-related exile. Her dominance keeps the women’s side of the sport tethered to the "record-breaking" era, even when the men’s side hit a temporary plateau in volume.
The Future: Netflix and the "Unfinished Beef"
The drama didn't end on July 4th. If you thought the rift between Chestnut and MLE meant the end of the era, you’re wrong. It just moved to Netflix.
In September 2024, Netflix hosted "Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef." This was a huge deal. It brought Kobayashi out of retirement for one final showdown against his greatest rival. They didn't use Nathan’s hot dogs. They didn't follow MLE rules. They used "natural casing" dogs and had a 10-minute clock.
Chestnut won. Obviously. He ate 83 hot dogs.
Eighty-three.
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That shattered his own world record of 76. It proved that the environment of the Nathan’s contest—the heat, the humidity, the specific bun texture—might actually be holding the numbers back. In a controlled, air-conditioned environment with his greatest rival across the table, Chestnut went into a different gear. This event signaled a shift in the sport. It’s moving away from single-event dominance (Nathan’s) and toward "super-fight" style entertainment.
How to Watch Competitive Eating Like a Pro
If you want to understand what makes a hot dog contest winner successful, stop looking at their mouths. Look at their throats and their feet.
Most top eaters do a "shimmy." It’s a rhythmic bounce that uses gravity to help the food settle in the stomach. If you see an eater standing perfectly still, they’re probably about to lose. You have to keep the mass moving.
- The Chipmunking Phase: This happens in the final 30 seconds. Eaters stuff as much as possible into their cheeks. As long as they swallow it all within a reasonable time after the buzzer, it counts.
- The Bun Strategy: Buns are the enemy. They’re dry. They’re bulky. A winner usually eats two dogs for every one bun, or they dunk the bun into a "lubricant" (usually water or Crystal Light).
- The Breathing: You can't breathe through your mouth while you’re swallowing. Eaters have to master nasal breathing while under extreme physical stress.
It’s easy to mock. People call it "gluttony as a sport." But honestly, when you see someone push the human body to do something it was never designed to do, there’s a weird kind of respect there. It’s a spectacle of will.
Actionable Insights for the Aspiring Fan
Whether you're just a casual viewer or someone who wants to try a local wing-eating contest, there are things you can take away from how these pros operate.
- Don't try this at home without prep. Seriously. People have choked and died in amateur contests. Professional hot dog contest winners have trained their "swallow reflex" over years. If you're going to enter a local contest, practice with soft foods and always have someone with you who knows the Heimlich maneuver.
- Capacity over speed. In a 10-minute window, most people fail because they hit a "wall" at minute five. They go too fast early on and their stomach locks up. The pros maintain a steady pace.
- Follow the independent circuit. If the Nathan’s drama taught us anything, it’s that Major League Eating isn't the only game in town. Follow the "All You Can Eat" YouTube scene and the independent "super-fights" on streaming platforms.
- Watch the mid-tier eaters. If you want to see the real grit, don't just watch Chestnut or Sudo. Watch the people fighting for 3rd and 4th place. That’s where you see the real struggle and the technical errors that separate the legends from the hobbyists.
The landscape of competitive eating has changed. The 2024 season proved that the sport is bigger than one brand, but maybe not bigger than one man. Joey Chestnut might not have the Mustard Belt right now, but he owns the record books. And in the world of professional eating, the record is the only thing that truly tastes like victory.
Check the local schedules for the 2025 qualifiers starting in the spring; even without the big names, the energy at a live qualifier is something every sports fan should experience at least once. It’s loud, it’s messy, and it’s uniquely American.
Observe the technique, ignore the critics, and respect the hustle.