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The annual Wing Bowl begins Friday morning at 6 a.m. at the Wells Fargo Center.
It's not America's favorite football holiday, but Philadelphia's 2012 Wing Bowl -- an annual wing-eating extravaganza put on by 94 WIP that takes place Friday at 6 a.m. at the Wells Fargo Center -- delivers fun in ways the Super Bowl cannot.
The event will be hosted by talk-radio host Angelo Cataldi, who co-founded the contest in 1993 along with Al Morganti. Expecting a crowd of more than 20,000 spectators, the Wing Bowl is a Philadelphia tradition centered on gluttony.
A group of contestants eats as many wings as possible in as short a time frame as possible. As participants drop out -- due to fierce stomach aches, mostly -- the last person still eating furiously wins.
Wing Bowl 2012 features the events two biggest superstars, El Wingador and Super Squibb, who have turned themselves into Philadelphia legends by fearlessly swallowing wings, and international eating hero Takeru Kobayashi will join them. Kobayashi has eaten 200 wings per day while training for the event.
Spectators will be treated to a good time. In addition to the eating spectacle on center stage, the Wing Bowl promises a day of "heckling, consuming, eating, and entertaining."
The 2012 Wing Bowl will feature the usual famous faces the event in known for, El Wingador & Super Squibb, but this time around they'll also be welcoming another food superstar, Takeru Kobayashi. The sub 200 pound Japanese eating phenomenon will attempt to win one of the few major eating competitions he hasn't already won.
To train for the event, he's been eating 200 wings per day.
"It is very close to power lifting and weightlifting, which are two things I’ve done in the past," said Kobi, through manager Maggie James. "You need to train and convince yourself that you can do this. You have to trick yourself mentally that you can, because your brain isn’t telling you that you can eat all these wings for 10 days. For me, it’s always about going after your own records. I try to look for that equal counterbalance where physically and mentally you’re equal to the challenge. It’s all a matter of conditioning yourself."
I actually met Kobi over the summer at a sports blogging conference in New York. At that event, he chugged a gallon of milk in about 10 seconds. It was something to see. He also took a picture with me.
The Wing Bowl, if you've for some reason never heard of it before, is WIP's yearly pre-Superbowl celebration of wing eating and strippers held at the Wells Fargo Center. Half naked girls escort fat, sloppy wing eaters to a giant table and they just all have at thousands of wings until time is called and a winner is announced. It's simultaneously everything that is right and wrong with our sports scene...
This year, the "celeb" quotient will be ramped up with the presence of former porn star Jenna Jameson. She'll be joining fellow porn star Marey Carey at the event. Jameson's appearance is essentially an advertisement for an appearance she'll be doing at the World Famous Gold Club ("world famous" is the name, not a description) afterward.
The Wing Bowl will be held this year on Friday, February 3rd. Check out the official Wing Bowl page for more info.
Wing Bowl 2012 Results: Kobayashi Wins, Eats 337 Wings
Eating contest legend, Takeru Kobayashi, has taken 94WIP's Wing Bowl 2012 crown by eating 337 total wings.
The first round ended with Kobayashi downing a record 165 wings. He added 152 wings in the second round and led all competitors by 65 after two rounds. The next highest wing total was consumed by Squibb, who had eaten 252 in two rounds.
Kobayashi was the eventual winning with 337 total wings. Super Scuibb came in second place with 255 wins, winning the local prize. In order to prepare for the event Kobyashi reportedly ate 200 wings per day in the days leading up to the event. He also "Tebow'd" prior to the event. Check out photos of Kobyashi and his entourage here.
All updates on the Wing Bowl and the results of the Wing Bowl can be found on the official site of the Wing Bowl and the official Twitter account of Sports Radio 94 WIP.
Feb 03 10:30a by Jordan Sams