The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Joey Chestnut at Super Bowl LIX | Ep #81

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Famed competitive eater Joey Chestnut swings by the Fox Sports Radio set at Media Row during Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans. Joey discusses the world of competitive eating, his decision to sit out on the Nathan's Hot Dog eating content, and dives deeper into his every day life.  One of our favorite hangs with Joey so far #FSR #CRSHOW #Overpromised See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the ice.

Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game.

This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the moment and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged.

It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days I'd put on 10 pounds, I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, we are Kavino and Rich on Fox Sports Radio, and we're joined by competitive eating icon.

You like that? I mean, Icon. Let's welcome Joey Chestnut. Oh, good to be on with you guys. What's up, man? Just a goofy dude that like to eat. You know what? We've interviewed you so many times throughout the years.

You're such a legend. I'm not even sure we ever got the story of how you got into it. Is it because you love to eat? Did you have a natural knack for it? Growing up, I was always the fastest eater in the family. My mom would actually get mad. And so when I went away to college, I was kind of ashamed of it. All right, I eat normal.

I'm like everybody else. But every once in a while, I let it out. And my friends in the dorms, they're like, oh, my God, Joey can eat. And then eventually I got signed up to a contest a couple years later. And I was like, all right, I'll do it. And I was like, I fell in love with it. It was like, all right, I don't have to be ashamed of it. I'm like, lean into it.

Yeah. I just went in and, yeah, people are just yelling at me to eat and I'm going to put them down. That means, Rich, you kind of have a natural knack for this, Rich. I finish before everyone else. Noticably, though. I purposely have to slow down when I eat. Oh, yeah. So like, with my fiancee now, she's awesome.

We order three entrees all the time we go out. So it's not that weird. So we say we're sharing one, but really it just ends up being mine. You know, it's funny you would say that. I'm a big advocate of splitting food. And these guys are making fun of me. With his buddies, though, not with his wife, his buddies, his friends. No, yeah, I'll steal food.

It's not stealing. I'm really, I'm just making sure it's safe. If the food makes him sick, I want to be sick, too. Yeah, good one. It's like, no, no, it was definitely the food that made him sick because I got sick too. You know what's annoying about it? Not you, Joey. You're a great guy.

You're a professional. He's just an annoying friend. He's eyeing up my food the whole time. And I'm like, dude, wait until I'm, like, get your nose out of my plate. You shouldn't be neglecting your food. If it's there, you should. Joey. Don't stare at it.

Eat it. Joey, I feel this guy. I will sometimes encourage my wife to order something. I know she won't finish so that I know I'll get a little taste. I know exactly what you mean. He knows. By the way, I know how Kavino is a guy that always says the four major sports, football, baseball, basketball, and eating. Because I feel like we talk about you a lot.

You had a big year. You got that Netflix money this year. How was that? Oh, Netflix was awesome. Beyond the money, it was really just going against my old rival. How crazy was that? Dude, Kobayashi was dodging me for years. And it really sucks that I couldn't go with the Fourth of July this year.

Major League Eating was not happy that I was doing the Netflix thing. But hopefully we can figure it out for this year. And I'm not just kissing your ass. Without you in it, it really was sort of weak. Oh, my God. I mean, you felt that what you had to feel that way. Are you going to hope to come back next year? I hope we can figure it out.

It was weird because they did some weird things. But you know what? I'm hoping that they, I don't have hurt feelings for long. Yeah, but you know what? Then it's the return of Joey Chess. I mean, this is America. You've got to have the best person there. Yeah, it's a bigger deal.

If it's on TV, you've got to have the best. Hey, we got a question from one of our listeners. Mercer Man in Pittsburgh, who's an amateur eater, has a question for you. chestnut here. How did you train to eat bagels? Fifteen and eight minutes. Was that it? Fifteen and eight minutes. He says because it doesn't seem like a lot, but they're so tough to chew. Your jaw tires fast. They're so dense. And there's always the danger of the choking hazard of eating bagels. How do you train for something like that? Like all eating kindies. I had to do practice with bagels. I tried to, so my first year, yeah, I didn't know what kind of bagels there were. This year was a lot easier to practice with.

I found some New York style bagels. They were kind of, it's like, really dense on the inside, but there's like almost a crispy shell on the outside. It's like a, it's a real New York bagel. But just practice and the jaws usually get stronger. We always see the physical strategy when you're competing. Tell us about the mental strategy. And, you know, the moments where your body's saying no, but you're still pushing through. Yeah, it's weird because like I've always, I was like you.

There's a lot of big eaters, fast eaters out there, but that's fun. I go in knowing, like, you've got to be like a full. ball player. They can know that they're going to be injured, even if they're not really, they're going to feel like garbage for days after game. Once I started realizing, all right, I have to go in realizing, realizing accepting that I'm going to feel like garbage for three days.

Then I was like, all right, it's not about eating for fun. It's about eating just to do whatever it takes. And I was able to push harder. Joey, are people ever offended if you turn down food? Oh. Because imagine, imagine

someone's like, try my wife's pie, And you're like, oh, no, thanks. That's like. This weekend's about the five-layer dip. Yeah. Lots of Super Bowl food. If you say no thank you, that's like, man, okay, Joey. A lot of times, I'm like super late.

Some people are like, oh, like do the restaurants want to kick you out? Like, no, usually the chef comes and brings over like their favorite thing that they're proud of. Yeah. And most of the time it's really good and they're super happy to actually eat it because they're used to people like just taking one bite in and wasting the food. But they're super happy. But once in a while, they bring out something that's a little bit funky or just a little bit different. That just doesn't agree. It's very rare.

I'm not a picky eater. Chelled monkey brain. I just feel like, yeah, I feel like, oh, my God, I'll force it down. I don't want to make anybody feel bad because, you know, I'm a terrible cook. And having anybody. Oh, you know what? I actually wrote that looking at cooking skills. You eat a lot, so no skills in the kitchen, actually?

Oh, I'm terrible. Dude, it's just a great eater. It's pathetic. So I have respect for anybody who actually can't cook. Joey, I'm not sure we ever asked you this, man. When you're out and about at a restaurant, people recognize. you anyway. They've been watching you for years. They know you're the guy, but they're also watching to see how you eat. Is that annoying? Like, do you notice that? They're like, oh, let's see how

fast he finishes. Like, you can't even go out in public and just enjoy a nice meal without people wondering. It's, I mean, it's not that bad of a gig. It's not, yeah. When you really take a bigger look, right? I heard, like, remember, like, Charles Barkley getting people, the people, like, yelling at him in bars and you get in fights. People commenting about my eating. It's not a big deal. You're a big eater. Are you a big guzzler? Like, can you throw some Does that quantify for you being a big drinker? Really? No, I mean, can you really drink a lot too or no?

Yeah, yeah, it can go down. Really? Yeah, one time I did something for Pat McAfee before he was this Pat McAfee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He lined up 12 pints of beer, and I drank him in like 70 seconds. Damn. I got to ask, of all the things that I know the different categories, is there one that you're like, that's gross, I'll sit this one out?

Oh, yeah, bull test. Festicles. Oh, yeah. Dude. So, yeah, it was a casino contest. You mean they're not delicious? I didn't do it. But I was like, so the casino was notorious for making bad food.

Right. And I was like, no, I don't trust them to make them. The eaters, they told me that they were like undercooked and like stretchy. And they were not, uh, yeah, I'm lucky I didn't do that one. I mean, I'm glad you didn't eat it. Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news.

What's the news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there.

But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes.

I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Joey Chestnut here on the Kavino and Richo Fox Sports Radio. And Joe, you're, as far as I see it, responsible for the popularity of competitive media. I think, you know, competition. I think the golden era, like me and Kobayashi. Right. That's what really like, oh, my God. That's true.

We always see it. People can actually be competitive. Like, there were contests where he started out ahead, and I caught him and I overtook him. Yeah, Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, Ali, Frazier. You need a good rival. That is true. It's, I mean, it's really nice. Would he give you that credit?

Oh, I mean, no, he might cry. Dude, he's crying. Oh, my. God. I was like, dude, I feel like I'm abusing him. I didn't even make him crazy. I didn't even say anything mean to him. But he cries like, like, uh, the Netflix thing. He had to change, we had to change the rules. He didn't want to dunk. So I had to eat the hot dogs, no dunking. It's, uh, that guy is he needs, yeah. I, I still love him. I respect the competition. But he cries a lot. Oh, he cries. He's a baby. He's a baby. I don't know, right. He's a sports baby. No, what I was going to ask you is, you know, I see you as responsible for the popularity of the sport. How do you see it. E. E. He's a baby. He's a baby. He's a sports. How do you see it. He's a. He's evolving. I think, you know, I think part of the biggest, the biggest thing is Fourth of July. It's American. Yeah.

It's, you know, you don't have to apologize for being American. You don't have to apologize for eating 20 hot dogs. It's like, it's the perfect, it's the perfect storm of like, yay, we're loving this thing. We're loving hot dogs. We love fireworks, and we're going to push it to the limit. We're here with a lot of football players, you know, Media Row. Yeah. Joey, in the NFL, 30s, 40-ish top.

is like, you know, that's time to call quits. Is there a retirement age for competitive eating? Is that something, like, you know, golfers could go into their 50s or 60s if they wanted to. You know what? I keep looking towards Tom Brady. I think he won the Super Bowl at 44. Yeah. I'm 41 right now.

It'd be really nice to be on top at 44. That'd be really rad. At 45, that'd be unheard of. That'd be nuts. So that'd be really cool. I'm just, and it's taking more work. I was going to say as just nature and life and your body takes over. Father time is a jerk.

When I was younger, I could do a practice like every three or four days. Now it's like seven or eight days to the recovery period. It takes so much longer to recover. You know what I was going to ask you, Joe? There's so many football teams that take a lot of pride in eating those uncrustables, right? Like, what was the Broncos? The Broncos team, I think it was like 700 uncrustables they put back in a week. Like they're pounding those.

Like maybe that's an angle for you. many of those PBJ? 700. Yeah. But the whole team. That's Bush League. Right. I'm wondering how many you could eat.

Again, peanut butter and jelly with the bread and everything. That's one I haven't done in the contest. But it's become a big thing because all these young football players now, they grew up eating that. So it's a big thing in the locker room. That might be an angle for you. But you could take on an entire team, I'm thinking. Or like the offensive line.

Joey versus the offensive line in a crustacevles contest. Take on the Denver Broncos. I'd put my money on you, man. That'd be rad. No, seriously. Have you never tried that? I've done a couple contests, me versus a group of people. But I think uncrustables, that sounds, it needs to be done.

Right? Add that to the list of records. Let us promote it. Let's get some money going. Yeah. Something for charity. Smuckers got some flow. Let's do this.

Yeah. Joey, here at the Super Bowl, is it funny when people in different sports recognize you, like NFL players or, you know, celebrities pass by like, hey, Joey Chestnut. That's got to be a weird feeling, right? I mean, it's weird, but then they tell me, oh, I've been watching you since I was a kid. I was like, damn. I'm old.

Speaking of the youngsters, man, Joey Chestnut here with Kavino and Rich, do you have advice for aspiring eaters, like the young guys out there that are like, you know what? I'm good at this. What sort of advice would you give them? I think it's really figuring out your body because it's not like, you know, these guys play football. They knew five, six years old.

They were going to be a professional football player. Like me, I didn't really think. think I was going to be, it wasn't, even when I was champion, I didn't think it was going to be my joby job. Right. And you were embarrassed pies instead of leaning into it. It was something I grew up like, all right, I have to hide it from the world. But competitive eater, like these days, like if they know they're a good eater and they start

figuring out their body when they're young, trial and error and learning how to go from absolutely empty to 100% full, and then make their body, yeah, make it go through your body fast. If they can figure out their body, they, yeah, I think. that's the biggest thing is like keep a food journal how you're feeling and knowing that you don't actually have to feel good to do good. And I want the Fox Sports Radio Nation to always remember as Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Gretzky, Ali, and Joey Chestnut. There he is. By the vote. He's the goat.

This year, the return, hopefully. Oh, hey, turn. That you never know. The return. Let's put some pressure on him. Dude, always a pleasure to have you on the show, man. Great deal with you guys. Joey Chestnut, Kavino and Rich.

Fox Sports Radio. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast. from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last? Tell me what you know.

Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.