Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest 2011

When the guy with the mohawk ate the hotdog then drank the pop or what ever it was... i was just recoiled in horror and disgust!

My god, how do they do that?

The whole concept of eating contests in a world where people are starving disgusts me.

This was disgusting. I despise eating contests, unless you set the limit and then see who can eat it fastest, which can be fun, and no one winds up eating 62 hot dogs. Really, there is no need for it and it makes me feel sad that anyone could look so pleased with themselves for showing off how much food they can waste in one sitting

*snif* It's a touching tribute to Anthony Weiner.

Cripes! 62 hot dogs, including the buns, and however much drink they had.
Where do they put it all?
I don't think I can even eat 10...

This was on ESPN on July 4th...I thought how disgusted I was of Americans to celebrate their independence by cheering on as idiots gorge themselves with excessive amounts of hot dogs...makes me sad to be an American...I wonder if this will overcome our national pastime of baseball...I wouldn't be surprised unfortunately...

How do you feel about the fact that the best competitive eater is Japanese?

Lenore... you do realize how fallacious what you said was, no? These people were clearly starving; how else could they've eaten so much?

Secondhandcreations, they even said during the contest that a massive majority of people don't think this is a sport as much as it's a curiosity (80%). A 40k person crowd on Coney Island on July 4th isn't really hard to come by, and teams like the Yankees can pull that sort of attendance on a weekday in the middle of April with no problem, never mind on a national holiday at a definitive US tourist spot. Name another eating contest you know of that would pull even a tenth of that attendance, because I sure can't off the top of my head.

The record wasn't even past 3 packs of hot dogs until 2001, when a JAPANESE (as wyse mentioned) eater got to 50. There were teams from around the world participating, so it's hardly a uniquely American phenomenon. Rail against the concept of competitive eating if you want, but to have it make you "sad to be an American" and wonder if it will ever become more than a niche curiosity "sport" is silly.