A rerun of Jaws will be the blockbuster attraction in Coney Island this Fourth of July holiday, but not the classic Steven Spielberg movie enjoying a new lease of life on the 50th anniversary of its release.
The jaws here belong to Joey Chestnut, the undisputed all-time champion of hotdog consumption, and a leviathan in the world of competitive eating that has grown as a sporting spectacle to the point where it is a regular fixture on ESPN.
Enthusiasts of the annual Nathan’s Fourth of July hotdog eating contest will recall that Chestnut, whose nickname is Jaws, was controversially booted from the 2024 iteration of the event he had dominated for the best part of two decades for signing a deal to promote a rival brand of plant-based wieners.
It was, as the event’s impresario, George Shea, declared at the time with trademark grandeur, the equivalent of Michael Jordan telling Nike – purveyors of his lucrative Air Jordan line of sneakers – that he wanted to rep for Adidas too.
Now, to the relief of many, Jaws is returning to the fold after serving a year’s suspension.
On Friday, the world record holder, with 83 dogs and buns scoffed in a single 10-minute period in an unrelated Netflix special in September 2024, will be the star attraction once again in pursuit of his 17th mustard belt.
“I’m thrilled to be returning,” Chestnut, 41, said in a post to X. “This event means the world to me. It’s a cherished tradition, a celebration of American culture, and a huge part of my life.”
Referring to the controversy that caused his exclusion, he was circumspect.
“While I have and continue to partner with a variety of companies, including some in the plant-based space, those relationships were never a conflict with my love for hotdogs. To be clear: Nathan’s is the only hotdog company I’ve ever worked with,” he wrote.
The straw-hatted Shea, mastermind of an event that draws tens of thousands to New York every year, and a television audience estimated to have grown to 2 million since the first contest in 1972, welcomed the return of the king.
“Last year we got as big a crowd as ever, more media than ever, and we had a fantastic contest that was actually more competitive because Joey has been so dominant,” he told the Guardian.
“That said, there’s definitely more excitement now he’s back. We and everybody, fans included, are very excited and looking forward to the Fourth, and his entrance into the arena will be triumphant and explosive.”
Shea, whose colourful and bombastic introductions of the competitors are as much a part of the spectacle as the mouth-stuffing element that follows, said he had been working for weeks on how he will proclaim Chestnut’s homecoming.
“It’s not his nickname that makes him who he is, it’s his performance that has defined him, and I believe that’s been very significantly elevated by the introductions that I do of him as a larger-than-life figure,” said Shea, a New York-based public relations executive who says working the Fourth of July event is his “annual treat to myself”.
“I try to create a mix that includes straight and grand introductions that describe what these people are doing on the eating circuit, with a mix of funny, absurd and poetic, and then epic when you get to Joey.”
Shea admits it will be hard to top his 2015 introduction, a fire and brimstone speech that somewhat melodramatically hailed Chestnut as an almost otherworldly being: “A comet blazes to herald his arrival, and his victory shall be transcribed into every language known to history, including Klingon,” he pronounced.
“The bratwurst, and pierogi, and Hooters chicken wing eating champion of the world, eight-time Nathan’s Famous hotdog eating champion of the world, the No 1 eater in the world, I give you America itself, Joey Chestnut.”
The expectation for Friday, at least in betting circles, is that Chestnut will come storming back to recapture his crown from last year’s winner, Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti, and a strong field of Major League Eating characters, perhaps even by topping his own event record, set in 2021, of 76 hotdogs.
But the real winner, Shea said, was the sport of competitive eating itself.
“We’ve been talking, there was a lot of back-and-forth, and people had different perspectives, different opinions, different everything, but everybody wanted this to happen. We stayed at it, and we finally came together,” he said.
“What happened was unfortunate, it was disappointing not to have Joey there, but in the big picture it further elevated the contest, and you know, we’re very conscious of that all the time.”
