2025 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest: Joey Chestnut makes his return

Joey “Jaws” Chestnut returns to the field for the 2025 Nathan’s hot dog eating contest on Friday at 1 p.m. ET on Coney Island.

A 16-time winner of the event, Chestnut was banned last year because of a sponsorship conflict with a competing vegan hot dog company. Try saying that sentence with a straight face because I certainly couldn’t write it with one.

Chestnut, 41, is an absolute titan of the “sport” of competitive eating. In addition to winning the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest every year from 2007 to 2014 and again from 2016 to 2023, Chestnut is also a six-time U.S. chicken wing eating champion, a three-time Wing Bowl champion and a two-time Krystal Square Off hamburger eating champion.

Chestnut’s world record for hot dogs is 76, set in the allotted 10 minutes at the 2021 Nathan’s contest. And while Patrick Bertoletti won the Mustard Belt last year with 58 hot dogs in 10 minutes, Chestnut downed 57 dogs in five minutes in a different competition the following day. In fact, Chestnut has finished with 60 or more hot dogs eaten ever year from 2011 to 2023.

Chestnut is looking to go even further in 2025 and set a new record.

“I think some people are putting the Over at 74, or 72,” Chestnut said this week. “That’s high. Even though the record’s 76, it’s gonna be hard for me to push myself. I know like minute six if I have a chance at the record. I have a tendency to get lazy if I don’t think I can get the record. I would love to get the Over. I’m gonna really try hard.”

Joey Chestnut’s competition

I could go through a detailed list of Chestnut’s top competitors and try to make a case for each of them to win, but let’s face it, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut is an animal and he’ll destroy the field.

Here’s the full field for the 2025 men’s contest, according to Major League Eating (yes, it’s a real organization):

Joey Chestnut: 41-years-old, Westfield, Indiana

Patrick Bertoletti: 40, Chicago, Illinois

Darrien Thomas: 26, Orillia, Ontario

James Webb: 36, Sydney, Australia

Nick Wehry: 35, Tampa, Florida

Geoffrey Esper: 50, Oxford, Massachusetts

Max Stanford: 37, Brixton, England

Derek Hendrickson: 37, Las Vegas, Nevada

George Chiger: 46, Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania

Ricardo Corbucci: 38, Brasilia, Brazil

Gideon Oji: 33, Morrow, Georgia