bonus episode: the kobayashi vs. chestnut rematch, live in las vegas

showdown that happened on Labor Day. The event itself was broadcast live on Netflix. It was called Unfinished Beef. Pretty good title, you gotta admit. And it was a part of this new initiative from Netflix that maybe you've noticed in the last year there live streaming more things across genres, and this appeared to kind of be an experiment to see how hotdog eating would play in this format. And to start, I want to be clear about one thing.

Hot dog eating is sports. And this was the first event I had ever been to that unquestionably treated hot dog eating like sports. I would not have missed it for the world. I literally flew myself there. I am very invested in the rivalry of Kobayashi v. Chestnuts. So if you want to hear the full story of that rivalry, both online and off, as well as all of the intersecting media narratives that followed them over the years, that is in our episode that came out earlier this week.

But today I am taking you to an event I was convinced would never happen the day that Joey and Kobe faced off one last time on September two, twenty twenty four. As well as a little more from our guest from our last episode, Nicole Lucas Haymes, who is both an executive producer on Unfinished Beef on Netflix as well as the director of the iconic twenty nineteen thirty for thirty documentary on this rivalry called The Good, The Bad, the Hungry. So come with me if you will till

Las Vegas. It's September in Vegas, and so it's so hot I want to die and I'm here to see who after fifteen years of not competing against each other, has come out to see Kobayashi and Chestnut compete live at the Hyperax Arena in the middle of Labor Day, and as my friend and writer at The Ringer Jody Walker mentions in her wonderful coverage of the event, which I will link in the description, Labor Day clocks in as an American holiday pretty close in jingoism to the

Fourth of July. It's a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the American worker, or it's supposed to be. It began as a celebration of unions and collective efforts to cut down grueling work schedules in favor of more manageable hours and wages. But like many American holidays, over time, Labor Day has become a day to enjoy heavily processed

meat with your friends. But this year I am clo walking in on Labor Day in Vegas, in this blisteringly hot, completely mollified American city to hear why the workers of America are spending their leisure day watching these guys eat

hundreds of hot dogs. And just as Labor Day is the second best holiday for such an event, Las Vegas feels like the second best location to Coney Island, where the Nathan's famous Hot Dog contest happens every fourth of July since the nineteen seventies and where Joey and Kobe faced off for the better part of the two thousands, kicking off this rivalry in the first place. And this event was happening right on the strip, and I like this strip. It's like if the Mall of America got

drunk and sharded itself. When I arrive at the Hyperrex Arena, I am far from alone. There is a lot of press here and technically I'm not even here as press. I am technically here as a guest of Netflix. I took a meeting with some of the produce of this special while it was still coming together earlier in the summer, and I managed to scam my way into VIP access instead of mixing among the plebes, which was honestly surprising to me because I was fully planning on being one

of the plebes. I just reserved normal tickets because I assumed I would not be able to con Netflix into letting me go, but I did. There was a lot of press around this event, and it's largely appealing to the nostalgia of this rivalry that's been going on for the better part of twenty years. So I wasn't sure what to expect, because it seemed like this event came together pretty rapidly, and down to the day it happens, I had a lot of questions about what this event

was really going to be. What I did know was that the rematch was the brainchild of director Nicole Lucas Hayms, who, as we discussed in the last episode, was the first person to really pull in the personal narratives of both Joey and Kobe in her thirty for thirty, along with kN textualizing their relationship with Major League Eating and its

top brass George Shay. Nicole had been wanting to make this happen for half a decade, and in summer twenty twenty four, everything suddenly came together for the first time. Joey Chestnut was finally contractually available to do a rematch during a year that Netflix happened to be seeking out high profile live stream opportunities, and in the coincidence of the century, one of the producers that Nicole had worked with at ESPN on the thirty for thirty had since

moved over to Netflix. So I met the hyperex arena and the line is winding and buzzing with energy, even though it's ten in the morning and everyone seems a little bit hungover, and the Paya Day workers that have been hired by Netflix are circling in the crowd and distributing T shirts for people to wear on the broadcast. The white T shirts say Team Chestnut, the black T shirts say Team Kobe, and yes, I managed to get

one of each. The event is to be hosted by comedian and Daily Wire alumni Rob Wriggle, along with w w E wrestling legend Nikki Bella. I am two hours early and there's already hundreds of people in line, and I quickly realized the only way to narrow down who I should be talking to in this line was to commit to only talking to people who were dressed like hot dogs. What brought you here? Event?

might have seemed like it came out of nowhere. It's been fifteen years since the very dramatic parting of this rivalry, which peaked with Kobe Yashi being publicly arrested on Coney Island while protesting Major League Eating's refusal to let him participate in the twenty ten contest. You can listen to our previous episode to know the full story. But a major factor as to why this.

But this was in the late two thousands, and it's interesting to watch why many people choose not to be with the mL now. The reason some eaters don't fuck with the organization is because you can make more money as an eating influencer. A great example is an eater named Matt Stoney, who has been the only person to defeat Joey Chesnut in the Nathan's Contest after Kobe departed in an otherwise uninterrupted seventeen year victory run.

money than one would have under an MLA contract. But with the exception of the league's top eaters, most professional eaters have not quit their day jobs. But still, professional hotdog eating isn't really popular enough to command contract drama outside of their biggest stars. So really, if anyone was going to have enough name recognition to stir the pot when it came to renewing their contract, it would have to be like Joey Chestnut, And in June twenty twenty four, it was Joey chest Nut.

were competing with the real truth. It's very possible that there is some bad blood between Joey Chestnutt and Major League Eating, but none of that has been formally confirmed.

What we know is that Joeoe was offered a contract with Impossible Foods that Major League Eating felt violated their long standing relationship with Nathan's Famous hot Dogs, which would be a rival brand, and for whatever reason legal, I'm assuming the mL forces Joey to choose between staying in the contest he became famous for, or this new deal with Impossible and Joey honestly, like I said in the last episode, Joey is more famous than the hot dog

eating contest at this point, so he goes with Impossible, and this prompts a number of silly media narratives, including the idea that Joey went woke and went broke by taking money from Vegan hot Dogs, which isn't even true. He still eats meat The other narrative I saw a lot was that Joey had been banned permanently from the

Nathan's Contest, which is also not technically true. Major League Eating has said he's welcomed back if he stops working with competing brands, and a quick side note here, Joey does have other ongoing business partnerships, I guess, just not ones that compete with a hot dog brand. I say this because I wanted to shout out my favorite Joey Chestnut collab, his ongoing partnership with Dudewipes.

to defend my title. To set the record straight, I do not have a contract with mL or Nathan's and they are looking to change the rules from past years as it relates to other partners I can work with. This is apparently the basis on which I'm being banned, and it doesn't impact the July fourth event. Sadly, this is the decision Nathan's and Major League Eating or making, and it will deprive the great fans of the huh Holiday's usual joy and entertainment. To my fans, I love

you and appreciate you. Rest assured that you'll see me eat again soon. All caps stay hungry, and if you're a hot dog head, this is just like unbelievably juicy. Now, the really tricky thing here is that Joey says he does not currently have a formalized contract with the mL and part of the reason that is is because he

learned from watching Kobayashi's experience. So there is a lot of frision between Joey and the organization, right It was a huge shakeup, and all of the fans, and by fans, I mean me, were waiting to find out if this issue was going to be resolved or if Joey was going to make the break between himself and the contest permanent. And we didn't need to wait long to find out, because the next day, Netflix announced hot dog eating champs Joey Chestnut and toa Karo Kobayashi will go head to

head in a Netflix special. The contest, titled Chestnut for Versus Kobayashi Unfinished Beef, will feature the two chowing down on all beef hot dogs, likely in a nod to reports that Chestnut's rival brand deal is with Impossible Foods, which makes plant based hot dogs. Major League Eating, the organization that oversees the Nathan's contest announced Tuesday that Chestnuts deal was an exclusivity issue, saying that it was his decision to step back from the competition he's participated in

since two thousand and five quote. We love him, the fans love him, said George Shay, a Major League Eating event organizer, adding he made the choice, Oh, oh my god, the boys are fighting. I don't know what scandaval is, but whatever it is, this is that for me. And now Netflix is announcing that not only is Joey not returning to the contest, he is taking a check from Netflix and going up against his greatest former Major League

Eating rifle. And on the day, Netflix releases this sorry, very ugly AI generated poster, which led me to think this must have come together very quickly, not even enough time to hire someone to make a poster quickly. George Shay of Major League Eating tries to play off the suddenness of this announcement and says that it's going to be a pale imitation of the Nathan's Contest, and it's

unclear if that'll be true or not. Also quick sidebar, New York City Mayor Eric Adams bravely weighs in and says, stop being such wienies. It would be impossible to have this year's Nathan's Famous International Hot Tag Eating Contest without Joey Chestnut. Let's find a way to squash this beef and bring back the champ for another Fourth of July at Coney Island, and Eric Adams is doing great, I hear. So when I spoke with Nicole, I wanted to know

did this Netflix thing come together really fast? And the answer appears to be yes and no. Nicole Lucas Ames tells me that she'd been trying to make this happen for years and once started moving the Netflix production team was amazing. This just happened to be when the stars aligned. How did this end up coming together?

The Live Division at that moment was evolving its own vision for programming, and a few months later she got back to us and said, let's keep talking, Let's try to get this moving. And there were some bumps along the way with Joey and Kobe, and she was absolutely instrumental in really fighting for this to happen. She was terrific.

Kobayashi's playbook. In twenty twenty three, when I went to the contest, there was this flying overhead plane advertisement from Kobe endorsing Heinz Ketchup. And in twenty twenty four, the recently ejected Joey had a Pepsi billboard right on Coney Island next to the contest. He was missing for the

first time in twenty years. These fellas are petty. I love them, and so in twenty twenty four, for the first time in almost a decade, Joey Chestnut did not win the Nathan's Hota eating contest because he wasn't there. So it does seem that this relationship is indeed severed, and that at Netflix, Kobe and Joey are going to be acting completely independently of Major League Eating. And then things go silent again until August, when the promotional materials

for the broadcast finally start to roll out. On August twenty third, the picture clears up a little bit when Robrigel and Nikki Bella are announced as the hosts and not Jamie. Yes, I tried that these hosts actually make a lot of sense based on what it seems like Netflix is trying to synergize, right, They're trying to get into live event streaming. They have just made a huge investment into the WWE, and they're also gearing up to stream a lot more sporting events. And so, to my delight,

Netflix treated hot dog eating like a sport. They brought in pro sports commentators Carry Champion and Chris Rose, something that was never formally done on the Nathan's Contest, even though it was broadcast on ESPN. Then in late August, Netflix announces that this contest will have new rules. Previously at the Nathan's Contest, the eater with the most hot

dogs with buns eaten in ten minutes wins. Water dunking is allowed, as are condiments, but most people will pass on that you can separate the hot dog from the bun, and partial hot dogs eaten will be counted as long as they are swallowed. Here are the rules that Rob Wriggle presented in a video Netflix posted to YouTube.

rules in the contest. And so I asked her more about what it was like to produce this event. What was it like having this be a live production like it seems it seemed very intense, totally intense.

I learned, which I found extraordinary. There was an extraordinary challenge in food teams overseen by an executive producer by the name of Daniel Kalin, and the care and time that went into making sure that the competition worked according to the rules, the writing of the rules, how they did all these practices, the questions that came up in between, like who would know that vomiting You're going to deduct some hot dogs? But what happened if you vomit after

the competition? Is done, and before and it's a tie and before start?

that that broadcast often has. They were straight up treating this like a sport, and.

this rivalry began, the framing of it has changed. In the early at the mL Joey and Kobe were talked about in this almost Olympic style rhetoric. It's not Joey

versus Kobe, it's America versus Japan. And by the time they get to Netflix in twenty twenty four, Joey and Kobe's history is framed as a pretty straightforward sports rivalry, devoid of the politics and contractual issues that we're now aware of, And in days leading up to the contest, they both did a fair amount of press to promote the event.

front and center with a camera on them. And to fill out the hour, Netflix trotted out a couple other professional eaters who were not contractually barred by Major League Eating to participate. There was Matt Stoney, the only other guy who's beaten Joey at the Nathan's Contest, who did a brief segment where he beat three Olympians in a pool side wings eating contest. Great no notes. There was a section with Australian eater Leah Shutkiver, who broke the

world record for watermelon eating live cool. I was glad to see a woman eater prominently featured. And while it's really dynamic, there's never a sense that anyone's making fun of anything. Really, the closest we get to levity or sketch comedy in this broadcast is a covert ad for the WWE, where two wrestlers Ramus Terio and Almos came out to declare their allegiance to Joey and Kobe whatever. And finally it's time Joey and Kobe come out, and

I am barely holding it together. I happened to be standing on Kobe Yashi's side of the crowd, along with some TikTok food influencers, and I was very happy to be sorted here. Joey has won contest after contest for years, but for Kobe, after all this time, and after all he'd been put through by major league eating and being

displaced by Joey, I wanted Kobe to win. And sure enough, as the guys start gobbling, and holy shit, if you haven't seen how efficient professional eaters are in the way they do this, I don't even know if I would recommend looking at it, but I think it's incredible. It's athleticism, and Joey and Kobe are neck and neck, hot dog for hot dog at the top of the contest. But as time goes on.

Joey was relentless. It was wild. So any concern that these new rules would set either competitor behind was a mistake. They were both performing better than ever, but by the last few minutes, who was going to win? The writing seemed to be on the wall.

influencers and other people kind of just dispersed. It was one in the afternoon, it was a holiday weekend, and a lot of them had flown out to Vegas for the event and wanted to enjoy the rest of their time. But I'm standing there like gutted, not even because Kobyashi

had lost, but because it was over. And while most people understandably leave the auditorium and continue their day, it was comforting seeing that there were a few other people there who had sunk hours and days and weeks into being a fan of professional eating and really never thinking this day would happen, standing in shock at what they'd just seen. It sucked watching Kobe Yashi loose. And I say that as someone who is in love with Joey Chestnut.

I saw him break his record back in twenty twenty one with seventy six hot dogs and I couldn't eat for days. It was incredible. But of course Kobe winning is the better story. But maybe that's the ultimate validation that this really is a sport. No one knew what was gonna happen, and the results were indisputable. So no, it didn't have the electric energy of a George Shay introduction.

You don't have Joey Chestnut coming out to Baba O'Reilly, you don't have Kobe Yashi being called poetry in motion. But to Netflix's credit, they did take this seriously. This was the most legitimized I'd ever seen hot dog eating, And for my money, that's a win for both of the rivals, because in many ways, being taken seriously is my much of what they've been asking for. So Joey and Kobe, my boys, your sixteenth minute will never end in my Heart. Thank you again to Nicole Lucas Hyms

for her time. You can watch her thirty for thirty and Unfinished Beef on Netflix now, and keep your eyes peeled for her latest work, which is a documentary about policing in America sometime next year. And what do you know, folks, If you want to hear more about my time at the Netflix event and about the history of hotdogs overall, you can buy my book Raw Dog, The Naked Truth about hot Dogs, which will be available in paperback next year and is available in hardcover at this very moment.

We'll see you again next week with an episode about Yes you Win. You have been heard. We're talking about Moo Dang Bye.