We have a new wiener!
Matt “Megatoad” Stonie is your new Nathan’s Hot Dog-Eating Contest champion, dethroning eight-time Mustard Belt winner Joey “Jaws” Chestnut in the annual July 4 chow-down in Coney Island.
A stunned Stonie said he was amazed to have snatched victory from Jaws’s defeat, but that he came prepared.
“I trained hard for this,” he said to emcee and competitive eating impresario George Shea after the tournament.
Stonie, returning for his sixth year, downed 62 dogs to Chestnut’s 60, beating his own previous personal record of 56. Tim “Eater X” Janus came in a distant third, ingesting 35 dogs.
Chestnut, who still holds the tournament record for the 69 dogs he demolished in 2013, said he never really found his rhythm in this year’s 10-minute dog-devouring show-down, but praised his opponent’s performance.
“I just had trouble,” he said. “I was slow and he was eating fast.”
Earlier in the day, defending champion Miki Sudo won the women’s division for a second year, polishing off 38 dogs to beat Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas, who put away 31.
It has been a big year for Stonie’s stomach. The upstart set a new birthday cake-eating record in February, eating 14.5 pounds in eight minutes. Later that month, he set another record, wolfing down 182 strips of bacon in five minutes, before smashing another in May by inhaling 34 pepperoni rolls in 10 minutes. He also holds records for frozen yogurt, gyros, pumpkin pie, slugburgers, fry-bread tacos, and traditional tacos, according to Major League Eating, the sanctioning body for more than 80 competitive eating contests around the world.
