On September 2, 2024, Joey Chestnut beat his archrival, Takeru Kobayashi, and his own hot dog eating world record. The record was broken during a Netflix special, showcasing competitive eating: “Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished beef.” Chestnut’s new world record is 83 hot dogs in 10 minutes, in addition to the other 55 competitive eating records that he has as well.

“It’s amazing,” Chestnut said to CNN’s Wayne Sterling. “I’ve been trying to hit 80 hot dogs for years and without Kobayashi I was never able to do it. He drives me.”

This was not the first time Chestnut and Kobayashi have faced off. They last competed in 2007 at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest where Chestnut started rumors that a jaw injury Kobayashi had sustained during training was a sham.

“We were not always nice to each other,” Chestnut said. “We’ve pushed each other to be our best.”

Competitive eating in general has participants compete against each other to eat large quantities of food in a short period of time. Eating competitions are typically 8 to 10 minutes long, though some last up to 30 minutes.

While competitive eating may seem like the epitome of American culture, it is actually medieval in origin. Nicholas Wood “the Great Eater of Kent” did a series of food related stunts in 1630, such as eating a whole sheep in one sitting. America’s competitive eating began on July 4, 1916 at Coney Island when, as legend has it, four immigrants ate as many hotdogs as they could to show their patriotism, allegedly kickstarting Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, which brought competitive eating to the masses.

Major League eating was contacted during the making of this article but made no comment.