Labor Day marked the end of the longtime rivalry between competitive eaters Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi, after the American smoked his Japanese nemesis during their first head-to-head contest in 15 years.
During the live Netflix event billed as "Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef," Chestnut inhaled 83 hot dogs in 10 minutes to win the $100,000 grand prize, while Kobayashi consumed 66 in what he said would be his final competition, win or lose.
Chestnut's victory at Las Vegas' Luxor Hotel & Casino Monday will also go down as a world record after the 40-year-old beat his own personal best of 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes.
"I was trying to get 80 hot dogs for years, and without Kobayashi, I was never able to do it," Chestnut told the event's co-host Rob Riggle after being given his winning belt and hot dog trophy. "He drives me. We weren't always nice to each other, but I love the way we push each other to be our best."
"I feel like I did everything I could," Kobayashi said through a translator to the other co-host, Nikki Garcia, after his loss.
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After years of competitions, the last time the pair matched up was in 2009 when Kobayashi's 64.5 hot dogs came second to Chestnut's 68 in 10 minutes at Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island.
Before then, Chestnut had beaten Kobayashi three times, while the reverse had happened twice. And since then, they've continued to chirp each other.
In interviews that aired before their match-up, Chestnut said Kobayashi was "an amazing champion until he started losing" and called his competitor's jaw arthritis issue a lie, likening it to another "excuse" his opponent used to justify a loss. Still, when the Netflix match was announced, Chestnut called Kobayashi his "fiercest rival" who pushed him to be "so much better," and said he couldn't wait to "give the people what they want" with another chapter in their rivalry.
On the other side, Kobayashi said he was "really upset" when he heard Chestnut calling his jaw injury fake, and said his opponent needed to be more respectful. And although he recently revealed plans to retire from competitive eating in Netflix's "Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut," he said he wanted to return to the eating stage to face Chestnut to "kick his ass," saying it was the first time that his personal feelings were involved in a match.
"Retiring for me will only happen after I take him down one last time," Kobayashi said when the Labor Day competition was announced. "This rivalry has been brewing for a long time. Competing against Joey live on Netflix means fans all over the world can watch me knock him out."
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The Netflix event had different rules than the typical competition the pair were used to, including no dunking hot dogs in water and no separating the bread from the weiners. Chestnut said he was surprisingly okay with the switch in the dunking rule, and would adopt it as a habit in future competitions.
Other competitive eaters were also in Las Vegas Monday to compete in pre-main event contests, with competitive eater Matt Stonie defeating Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte and Ryan Murphy and Olympic water polo player Max Irving in a chicken wing-eating contest. And another world record was set with the amount of watermelon 24-time Guiness World Record holder Leah Shutkever downed in a minute.
