A day after Joey Chestnut was declared ineligible for the 2024 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Competition, a more riveting matchup has been announced.
The reigning 16-time hot dog champion will face off against former world record holder Takeru Kobayashi in a head-to-head competition that will air on Sept. 2 on Netflix.
The two have not competed together in a hot dog eating competition since 2008, when the two legends forced a tiebreaker after eating 59 dogs in the allotted time. While Chestnut won the eventual tiebreaker, it was not without controversy. Competition officials decided the tiebreaker — the first to finish five dogs — in the spur of the moment. Both Chestnut and Kobayashi later complained about the structure of the process.
Chestnut and Kobayashi later met in 2009 in a Pizza Hut eating competition, which Kobayashi won. The two have not competed directly against each other since.
Chestnut has won each of the last eight Hot Dog Eating Competitions, closing as low as -4000 to win 2023's contest. That means a $4,000 wager was required to net $100.
He was as long as -5000 in 2022, -3335 in 2021 and -1000 in 2020's pandemic competition.
Meanwhile, Kobayashi has not won the competition since 2006, when he set the world record with 53.75 hot dogs eaten.
Chestnut had been barred from this year's competition after electing to maintain a sponsorship with Impossible Foods — a direct competitor of Nathan's — instead of dropping the partnership in order to compete.
Instead, now, Netflix will have a spectacle on its hands. It was enough, also, to get Kobayashi out of retirement. The 46-year-old had earlier this year bowed out of competitive eating due to health concerns.
