Joey Chestnut Breaks Hot Dog Eating World Record While Facing Takeru Kobayashi in Labor Day Hot Dog Eating Contest

Mar. 15, 2025

Joey Chestnut beats Takeru Kobayashi and his own world record.Photo:Netflix/X

Netflix/X

Two competitive eaters figured out who was the top dog.

Joey ChestnutandTakeru Kobayashiwent head-to-head in a Labor Day hot dog eating contest during Netflix’sChestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef, which streamed live on Monday, Sept. 2.

The two have a long and food-filled past full of online digs at one another and hundreds of hot dogs. After taking a 14-year hiatus from competing against each other, Chestnut, 40, and Kobayashi, 46, reunited onstage at the HyperX Arena Las Vegas.

Right out of the gates, the culinary nemeses were well-matched. Chestnut and Kobayashi were neck-and-neck for the first minute of the competition.

With eight minutes left, Chestnut had beaten a personal record and devoured 25 dogs in two minutes. But Kobayashi was not falling too far behind at 22 dogs.

At the midway point, the score widened between Chestnut and Kobayashi as the former had 51 and the latter had 45. The sports commentators excitedly commented that Chestnut is on track to beat his world record.

Joey Chestnut.Joey Chestnut/Instagram

Joey Chestnut/Instagram

With two minutes left, Chestnut had 72 hot dogs devoured while Kobayashi hit 60 dogs. Just a few seconds later, Chestnut hit his personal and world record and had eaten 76 hot dogs in eight minutes and 45 seconds.

The record-breaking continued as the competition continued. Chestnut was crowned the champion of the Netflix special with 83 hot dogs, a score that also topped his personal and world record.

Kobayashi, who said that this food-eating competition would be his last ahead of the live show, ended with a final score of 66 hot dogs.

Going into the Las Vegas battle, Kobayashi held a record of 64.5 hot dogs in 10 minutes, which he achieved during Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. Chestnut’s record was 76 hot dogs in that same amount of time, which he also achieved during the annual Coney Island competition.

“I’ve been trying to hit 80 hot dogs for years and without Kobayashi, I was never able to do it,” Chestnut said after receiving $100,000, a hot dog-shaped trophy and a championship title belt. “He drives me. We weren’t always nice to each other but I love the way we push each other to be our best.”

Kobayashi’s final words were, " I feel like I did everything I could do."

Several competition rules differed from Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. During the Labor Day competition, Chestnut and Kobayashi were not allowed to separate the bun from the hot dog nor were they allowed to dunk the food in water.

But despite being “really worried” about the rules, Chestnut said they might be part of his new technique.

“Any other hot dog contest I do, I’m going to be eating some of them without dunking,” he said.

The decades-long tension between the two competitors stems from early hot dog eating competitions.

Starting in the summer of 2001, Kobayashi beat Chestnut during Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest six years in a row. Chestnut then dethroned Kobayashi in 2007. They last shared the Coney Island stage in 2009 but their last time competing was during a 2010 in Singapore. Here, Chestnut came out on top after eating 380 shrimp wontons compared to Kobayashi’s 370 shrimp wontons.

Earlier this year, Kobayashi announced his retirement from competitive eating. Kobayashi said in Netflix’sHack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut, “I don’t feel that joy about eating anymore,” he said. “It’s scary to think that the brain and the gut are so closely related. It makes me want to be more careful with what I eat.”

Ahead of the Netflix battle, Chestnut, who holds over50 competitive eating records, told PEOPLE that he was “excited and nervous” to face Kobayashi again.

“I feel like a kid,” Chestnut said about his emotions going into the matchup. “We are going to push each other to crazy limits, and that’s what competition is… He’s pushing me, and I’m so motivated during practice.”

While he appreciates his rivaI, that doesn’t mean they’re friends.

“I respect him, but I also don’t like him. It’s my only rival that I have this weird … We both have friction. And he still has me blocked on Twitter and Instagram,” Chestnut explained, adding that it’s “awesome.”

In previous interviews, Kobayashi has been equally blunt about his feelings toward Chestnut.

“If you ask me, do I want to compete with him? Mmm, not necessarily,” Kobayashi told theDaily Beastin 2019. “I don’t even want to be in the same room with him.”

Thebroadcasted showdown was first announcedon June 12, one day after news came out that Chestnut would not be participating in Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest this summer.

A statement from Major League Eating explained that Chestnut was not eligible to participate due to a conflict with a plant-based brand. Nathan’s, who has held the eating competition every year on Coney Island since 1979, does not allow their competitors to endorse a “rival brand.”

In lieu of the contest in Coney Island, he spent his Fourth of July competingat a fundraising event for military familiesat the Fort Bliss army base in Texas, where he downed 57 hot dogs in five minutes.

Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beefwas broadcast live on September 2 at 3 p.m. ET/PT and is streaming now on Netflix.

source: people.com