Ok, I will be the first to admit, I have -never- understood food eating competitions. I mean, what’s the purpose of gorging yourself on something? Why not slow down and savor each delectable morsel?

Regardless of my personal disdain of this sort of speedy display, there is nevertheless a sizable fanbase for this “sport”. (Pun intended!)

Every July Fourth, Nathan’s Hot Dogs hosts a hot dog-eating competition on Coney Island. For the last three years, a man named Joey Chestnut has beaten another man named Takeru Kobayashi. Kobayashi stunned the world in 2001 by doubling the hot dog and bun record from 25 to 50 in 12 minutes and held the record for six straight years until Chestnut beat him in 2007. This year, Kobayashi had some sort of contract dispute with Major League Eating (yeah…they actually have a group that sanctions professional eating competitions…there’s even an international group, the International Federation of Competitive Eating) and on June 28th, he announced he wouldn’t be competing this year. All fine and good… until he showed up and took the stage at the end of the competition (which Chestnut won again for the fourth year in a row) and was promptly arrested.