Hey, we are Carpino and Rich on Fox Sports Radio and we're joined by competitive eating icon like that. I mean, I let's welcome Joey Chestnut O.
Good beyond with you, guys. What's up? It's just a goofy dude that like to eat. You know what.
We've interviewed you so many times throughout the years. You're such a legend. I'm not even sure we ever got the story of how you got into it. Is it because you love to eat? Did you have a natural knack for it?
Growing up? I was always the fastest eater in the family. My mom would actually get mad. And uh So when I went away to college, I was kind of ashamed of it. All Right, I eat normal, pretend I'm like everybody else, but every once in a while I'd let let it out and like my friends in the dorms, They're like, oh my god, Joey can eat. And then eventually I got signed up to a contest a couple of years later, and uh and I was like, all right, I'll do it, and I was like I fell in
love with it. It was like it was like I don't have to be ashamed of it. I'm like, lean into it. Yeah, dude, I just went in and uh yeah, people are just yelling at me to eat, and I'm gonna I'm gonna put him down.
That means rich. You kind of have a natural knack for this.
Rich I finish before everyone else, notice, purposely have to slow down.
It's when I eat. Oh yeah. So like with my fiance now, she's awesome. She uh we order three entrees all the time we go out, so it's not that weird. So we say we're sharing one, but really just ends up be in mine.
You know, It's funny would say that I'm a big advocate of splitting food and with his buddies, though not with his wife, his buddies, his friends.
No, yeah, I'll steal food. It's not stealing. I'm really I'm just making sure it's safe. Like if the if the food makes him sick, I want I want to Yeah good, It's like no, no, it was definitely the food that made him sick, because I got sick too. You know what's annoying about it?
Not you, Joe. You're a great guy, You're a professional. He's just an annoying friend. He's eyeing up my food the whole time, and I'm like, dude, wait until like get your nose out of my place.
Shouldn't be neglecting your food there, you should, Joey. Don't stare at it, eat it, Joey.
I feel this guy.
I will sometimes encourage my wife to order something I know she won't finish so that I know I'll get a little taste.
I know exactly what I mean.
He knows by the way, I know how Cavino is a guy that always says the four major sports football, Baseball, basketball, and eating. Because I feel like we talk about you a lot. You had a big year. You got that Netflix money this year.
How was that? Oh? Netflix is awesome, I mean beyond the money, was really just going against my old rival. How crazy was Kobash? She was dodging me for years? And uh, it really sucks that I couldn't go with the Fourth of July this year. Dude, the Major League eating was not happy that I was doing the Netflix thing. But uh, hopefully we can figure it out for this year.
And I'm not just kissing your ass without you in it.
It really was so weak.
I mean, you felt that we had to feel that way, like you getta hope to come back next year.
I hope we can figure it out. Uh. It's uh, it was weird because they did some weird things. But uh, I'm I'm hoping that they I don't have I'll have hurt feelings for long. Yeah, but you know what, you know, then's the return of I mean, this is America. You gotta have the best person there. Yeah, it's a big it's on TV. You gotta have the best Hey.
Yeah. We got a question from one of our listeners. Mercerman in Pittsburgh, who's an amateur eater, has a question for you, Joey Chestnut here, how did you train to eat bagels? Fifteen and eight minutes? Was at it fifteen minutes? He says, because it doesn't seem like a lot, but they're so tough to chew your jaw tires fast, They're so dense, and there's always the danger of the choking hazard of eating bagels.
How do you train for something like that? Like like all eating contests I had, I had to do practice with bagels. I tried to so my first year, yeah, I didn't know what kind of bagels that were. This year was a lot easier to practice with. I found some New York style bagels. They were they kind of it's like really dense on the inside, but there's like almost a crispy shell on the outside. It's like a it's a real New York bagel. But uh, just practice and the jaws usually get stronger.
We always see the physical strategy when you're competing, tell us about the mental strategy, and you know the moments where your body's saying no, but you're still pushing.
It's weird because like I've always been like, like you, there's a lot of big eaters, fast eaters out there, but that's fun. I go in knowing, like you gotta be like a football player. They know that they're gonna be injured even if they do not really, they're gonna feel like garbage for days after after a game. I once I started realizing, all right, I have to go in really really isn't accepting that I'm gonna feel like
garbage for three days. Then I was like, all right, it's not about eating for fun, It's about eating just to do whatever it takes. And uh it's and then I was able to push harder.
Joey, are people ever offended if you turn down food? Because imagine, imagine someone's like, try my wife's pie or and you're.
Like, oh, no, thanks, that's like this weekends about the five layer dip.
Yeah, that's a super Bowl food.
If you say no, thank you, that's like, man, okay, Joe.
A lot of times I'm like super like some people are oh, like, do the restaurants want to kick you out? Like no. Usually, usually the chef comes comes and brings over like their their their favorite thing that they're proud of. Yeah, and most of the time it's really good and they're super happy actually eat it because they're used to people like just taking one bite and wasting the food. But they're super happy. But once in a while they bring out something that's a little bit funky, it's just a
little bit different that that doesn't agree with. It's very rare. I'm not a picky eater, but I just feel like, yeah, I feel like, oh my god, I'll force it down. I don't want to make anybody feel bad because you know, I'm a terrible cook and having anybody.
But you know what, I actually wrote that like a cooking skills you eat a lot, you know, so no skills in the kitchen.
Actually I'm terrible, dude. It's just a great eater. It's pathetic. So so I have respect for anybody who actually can't cook.
Joey, I'm not sure we ever asked you this man. When you're out and about at a restaurant, people recognize you anyway. They've been watching you for years. They know you're the guy. But they're also watching to see how you eat.
Is that annoying?
Like do you notice that they're like, oh, let's see how he finishes. Like you can't even go out and public and just enjoy a nice meal without people wondering.
It's I mean, it's not that bad of a gig when you really take a bigger re loook, right. I heard remember like Charles Barkley getting people the people like yelling at him in the bars, and you get in fights people commenting about my eating. It's not a big deal.
You're a big eater, Are you a big guzzler?
Like? Can you throw some back?
Does that quinetify for you being a big travel Really?
No?
I mean can you really drink a lot or not?
Yeah? Yeah, go down really? Yeah? One time I did something for Pat McAfee before he was this Pat mcife. Yeah yeah, yeah, he had he lined up twelve pints of beer and and I rank him in like seventy seconds. Damn.
I gotta ask, of all the things that I know, the different categories, is there one that you're like, it's gross.
I'll set this one out.
Oh yeah, bull testicles, dude. So yeah, it was a casino contest. You mean they're not delicious? I didn't. I didn't do it, but I was like, so the casino was the tour is for making bad food, right, And I was like, no, I don't trust him to make him and the eaters they told me that they were like undercooked and and like stretchy and they were not. U. Yeah, I'm lucky I didn't do that one.
I mean, I'm glad he didn't either. Joey Chestnut here on the Cavino and Rich Show Fox Sports Radio, and Joe, you're, as far as I see it, responsible for the popularity of competitive.
I think, you know, competition, I think the Golden era like me and Kobeyashi, right, and that's what really like.
Oh my god, that's sure we always can.
Actually be competitive, Like like there were contests where he started out ahead and I caught him and I overtook him.
Angel Rees, Caitlin Clark, Ali Frasier.
You need, you need, you need a good rival.
That is true.
It's a I mean it's really nice.
Would he give you that credit?
Oh? He I mean no, he might cry. Dude crying. Oh my god. I was like, dude, I feel like I'm abusing him. I didn't even make him crazy. I didn't even say anything mean to him. But he cries, like like that Netflix thing. He had to change, he had to change the rules. He didn't want to dunk, so I had to eat the hot dogs. No dunking. It's uh, that guy is he needs Yeah, I still love him. I respect the competition.
But he cries alone.
Oh he cries a baby.
Sports baby, I don't know, sports baby.
No.
What I was gonna ask you is I see you as responsible for the popularity of the sport. How do you see it evolving?
I think, uh, you know, I think part of the biggest the biggest thing is Fourth of July. It's America. Yeah, it's uh, you know, you know, you don't have apologize for being American. You don't have to apologize for eating twenty hot dogs. It's it's like it's the perfect Uh, it's the perfect storm of like yay, I'm we're we're loving this thing. We're loving hot dogs, he love fireworks, and uh, we're gonna push it to the limit.
We're here with a lot of football players, you know, media row, Yeah, Joey in the NFL thirties, forty ish tops is like, you know, that's time to call quits. Is there a retirement age for competitive eating? Is that something like, you know, golfers could go into their fifties or sixties if they wanted to, Like you.
Know what, I keep looking towards Tom Brady. I think he won the Super Bowl at forty four. Yeah, I am forty forty one right now. It'd be really nice to be on top at forty four. That'd be really rad. At forty five that'd be unheard of. That'd be nuts. So that'd be really cool. I'm just and it's taking more work.
I was gonna say, as as just nature and life and your body takes all the time.
If all the time is a jerk. When I was younger, I could do a practice like every three or four days. Now it's like seven or eight days to the recovery period. It takes so much longer to recover. You know what I was gonna ask you, Joe.
There's so many football teams that take a lot of pride in eating those uncrustables, right, Like, what was the Broncos here?
The Broncos team, I think it was like seven hundred on crustables they put back in.
A week, like they're pounding those. Like, maybe that's an angle for you. How many of those PBJSN yeah, team, but the whole team bush league?
Right? What going on that?
I'm wondering how many you could eat again? Peanut butter and jelly with the bread and everything.
That's one I haven't done it, but it's.
Become a big thing because all these young football players now they grew up eating that. So it's a big thing in the locker room. That might be an angle for you that you could take on an entire team.
I'm thinking, or like.
The offensive line, Joey versus the offensive line take on the Denver Broncos. I'd put my money on you, man, I'd bed no. Seriously, have you have you ever tried that?
I've done a couple of contests me versus a group of people, but I think uncrustables that that sounds it needs to be done. Right, add that to the list of records.
Let us promote it. Let's get some money. Yeah, charity Smucker's got some flow.
Let's do this.
Yeah, Joey here at the Super Bowl. Is it funny when people in different sports recognize you, like NFL players or you know, celebrities passed by, like, hey, Joey Chestnok, that's got to be a weird feeling, right.
I mean it's weird. But then they then they tell me, oh, I've been watching you since I was a kid. It's like, damn.
Speaking of the youngsters, man, Joey Chestnut here with Cavino and Rich, do you have advice for aspiring eaters, like the young guys out there that are like, you know what, I'm good at this?
What sort of advice would you give them? I think it's really it's figuring out your body because it's not like, you know, these guys play football. They knew five six years old they were going to be a professional football player. Like me, I didn't really think I was gonna be It wasn't even when I was champion. I didn't think it was gonna be my jobby job. Right, it was? And you were embarrassed by Yeah, it was insteading into something. It was something I grew up like, all right, I
have to hide it from the world. But a competitive eater like these days, like if they if they know they're a good eater and they start figuring out their body when they're young, trial and error and learning how to go from absolutely empty to one hundred percent full and then make their body yeah, make it yeah, make
it go through your body fast. If they can figure out their body, they I think that's the biggest thing, is like keep a food journal, how you're feeling and knowing that you don't actually have to feel good to do good.
And I want the Fox Sports Radio nation to always remember as Tom Brady, Michael j Jordon Gretzky, Alie and Joey Chestnut.
There he is.
He's the go this year the return hopefully, let's put some pressure on it.
Dude.
Always a pleasure to have you on the show Man for
You guys, Joey Chestnut Coveno on Rich Fox Sports Radio