People often tie in Las Vegas with excess and over the top stories, and it certainly seemed to be the case when we heard about Joey Chestnut! Joey it would seem hit the Vegas headlines recently due to his partaking in the first ever Martorano’s Masters Meatball Eating Championship. Yes you didn’t read it wrong, it was definitely a meatball eating competition! Steve Martorano, the restaurant owner came up with the idea and explained that he was undecided on whether to have a cheese steak eating competition or a meatball eating competition. “We’re really known for our meatballs though. During 2007 Gourmet magazine said they had the best meatballs.

Joey Chestnut’s efforts have even managed to break the World Record meatball consumption when he amazingly ate 50 meatballs weighing 6.25lbs in a staggering time of ten minutes. The competition was held at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and was labelled as a Major League Eating-sanctioned contest. The competition prize wasn’t to be sniffed at either because the winner was set to take home $1500. If you thought that the result was unexpected then you would be wrong, as Joey is quite the athlete in the field of competitive eating. In the past he has won contests where he has had to eat chicken, hotdogs and pizzas!

There was no stuffing meatballs in by hand, as the rule of this competition was eating by using utensils only! Joey who is over six feet tall and weighs in at a mighty 218lbs only managed to grab the title by just one meatball, and coming in second place was Pat Bertolli who ate 49 balls. Third place prize went to Sonya Thomas, who for this contest was a bit of a flyweight as she only weighs in at 105 pounds, but managed to still consume 42 meatballs. She is certainly somebody to watch in future competitions, or maybe she was just hungry after her time playing poker!

She should maybe think about playing poker from the comfort of her own home. That way she could eat and play until her heart is content. Rakeback, Full Tilt Rakeback and Pokerstars Rakeback are all games she could sign up to. Mind you I bet if she played and ate at home, her weight wouldn’t stay at 105 pounds for long!