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You can take this one to the bank, sports fans: Takeru Kobayashi, six-time world hot-dog-eating champion, will not regain the coveted Mustard Yellow International Belt on Friday at Nathan’s in Coney Island.
But you don’t have to believe me (though you should, because I’ve been covering the annual stuff-your-faceoff since before most of you were born); you can take it right from Kobayashi himself.
“At best, I’m at 50 percent,” the Great Masticator told this columnist. “Because of my jaw problem, I don’t even know if my training will work or not. The whole thing is a surprise.”
Surprise? True champions are never surprised. They know going in that they will win. They have to know it because believing anything else is the first step towards failure.
Indeed, when the Jets won their only Super Bowl, Joe Namath guaranteed it!
When Babe Ruth hit that famous homer, it soared on a laser beam directly to the spot where he pointed!
When Deep Blue beat chess legend Garry Kasparov in 1997, the computer not only destroyed the Russian with analytical skill, but was concurrently printing out press releases about the victory!
The Kobayashi I saw at Thursday afternoon’s weigh-in ceremony at City Hall was not the six-time world champion, the man who ate 50 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes in 2001 — doubling his countryman Kazutoyo “The Rabbit” Arai’s then seemingly insurmountable record.
The Kobayashi who wanly stared down champion Joey Chestnut on Thursday was a fallen giant who could barely stuff down a single hot dog for the cameras before spitting it out into his hand and rubbing his jaw in distress.
Yes, the Kobayashi jaw! Few human body parts, with the possible exception of Britney Spear’s pantiless nether region, have been written about with such urgency in recent years.
And with good reason: Last year, Kobayashi’s jawthritis cost him the title — though he still downed 63 HDBs to Chestnut’s world record-setting 66.
Since losing last July 4, Kobayashi has gone into seclusion, appearing only at a single contest in October — turkey eating, by the way — and then returned to his Fortress of Salt and Brood in Japan to mull his murky future.
And here it is, one day before the long-awaited rematch, and Kobayashi is not himself. And this former come-from-behind master is none too pleased about the new rules stipulating a 10-minute contest.
“I feel like I’ve lost my edge, but I hope I’ll be able to adapt,” he said. “It’s like a new contest. I don’t know what will happen.”
And there it is, folks: Doubt, anxiety, jawthritis. That’s a recipe for Kobayashi’s defeat — and the birth of the Chestnut Era of competitive eating.
Gersh Kuntzman has been covering the Nathan’s hot dog-eating contest since 1988 and is a member of the Major League Eating Hall of Fame.
Nathan's hot-dot-eating contest will start at noon on Friday, July 4 at the corner of Surf and Stillwell avenues in Coney Island. Call (212) 627-5766 for info. Crowds are extremely large, so if you want to see the contest, get there hours early.
©2008 The Brooklyn Paper
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