This video is nearly 17 minutes long and is incredibly boring — at one point the cameraperson seems to forget they’re taping a competition at all and just films peoples’ shoulders — but it’s necessary to illustrate Joey Chestnut’s remarkable win at the 2012 Buffalo Wing Festival, and punctuate what a gross f**king human being he is.

Joe took in almost eight goddamn pounds of chicken wings to set the course record, defeating the second place finisher by over a pound of chicken and third place by over two. How depressing is it when you eat over five pounds of food in 12 minutes and finish third? The bar is set too high. Here’s the final tally:

Joey Chestnut: 7.61 pounds
Sonya Thomas: 6.36 pounds
Juliet Lee: 5.36 pounds

Be sure to stick around until the very end, when Chestnut has his hand raised by a guy in a king’s robe and a chicken wing hat like he’s on the Bozo Show. That’s the kind of special touch that makes the competitive eating world’s crowns so prestigious. Also, the ring girls in high-waisted mom shorts.

If you’re wondering how long it takes to shit out a newborn-baby’s-worth of fried food, here’s an important Twitter update from the world champion:

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On Tuesday, Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas won the Wild Turkey 81 Eating World Championship with a world record 5.25 pounds of turkey downed in ten minutes. The next day — the very same day most blogs with nothing better to write about were getting ready for Thanksgiving and reporting the world record — barred and disgraced “bad boy of competitive eating” Takeru Kobayashi was posting live, streaming video of himself destroying Sonya’s world record by more than two pounds.

Two problems.

First, if you haven’t been keeping up with Takeru Kobayashi, here’s the SparkNotes version … Kobayashi is sort-of the Hulk Hogan of competitive eating, both in that he spent years on top as the only marketable star of his profession and that his name is well known outside of the sport, at least to folks who don’t know about esoteric benchwarmers like “Crazy Legs” Conti.

Kobayashi won six consecutive victories in the Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Competition, but Major League Eating began insisting he sign an exclusive contract (I’m not making any of this up) that would bar him from competing in non-sanctioned events and sever Takeru from his precious hot dog intake. In 2010, while wearing a black t-shirt with “Free Kobi” across the front, Kobayashi stormed the Nathan’s stage to demand his “freedom” from the dispute. He was handcuffed, arrested and taken to jail. They took him off their “wall of fame” and everything.

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With Leather will be updating sporadically tomorrow, but chances are we’ll be spending most of my second least-favorite holiday* with our families. And yes, by family I mean my girlfriend and my housecat.

To get you in the mood for American Thanksgiving, please enjoy this story of 105-pound competitive eater Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas, owner of 24 world eating records, eating almost an entire Thanksgiving turkey with her bare hands at the Wild Turkey 81 Eating World Championship on Tuesday. That’s 5.25 pounds of turkey in ten minutes, putting her ahead of luminaries like Eric “Badlands” Booker and “Crazy Legs” Conti and a cool $1,581 prize. She also won a championship belt and that bronze turkey in the picture. It has a removable cleaver.

A quote from the NY Daily News puts the event and the “Black Widow’s” strategy into perspective.

“It’s a mind game,” she said. “If you lose your focus and say you’re getting full and slow down, you lose.”

Nobody used utensils in the frenzied feast. [Badlands] Booker picked his entire bird up with one hand and violently gnawed, a fleck of meat stuck to his cheek.

“I just ripped the bird apart and ate the innards,” he said of his strategy. “I think I ate the wishbone by accident.”

You can watch a video of highlights from the event below, and it’s got a 50/50 chance of being awesome looking or disgusting.

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Sonya Thomas has been a hot name on the professional food eating circuit as of late. Known to her opponents as the Black Widow, Thomas holds various records for chicken wing competitions, but none is greater than her newest record of woofing down 181 wings in 12 minutes at the National Buffalo Wing Festival on Sunday. But the most remarkable feat – unless you’re just simply floored by a woman who can eat five pounds of chicken without chewing – was who she defeated while setting the record. World hot dog eating champion Joey Chestnut could only stand there and watch as Thomas bested him by 12 wings. Clearly a milestone in the women’s bowel lib movement.

Thomas has 38 records for 35 foods, and her most recent accomplishment prior to the Buffalo Wing Festival was on July 15 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she housed 53 Taco Bell soft tacos in 12 minutes. She’s also single as Pitch.com points out, which is great news for anyone in the market for a 105-pound 42-year old woman who probably sets a personal record for Dutch ovens every day.

But is competitive eating a sport, Black Widow?

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