Wing Bowl 3 - The Main Event

The Wing Bowl Finals is divided into 3 rounds. The first round consists of all 42 finalists and is 10 minutes long. The top 25 finishers will go on to the second round which lasts another 5 minutes. The top 5 will advance to the final two minute round, and whoever eats the most wings after all three rounds will be crowned the winner and take home the $5,000 grand prize. New to this year's competition are a 2nd and 3rd place consolation prize. After a short introduction, Round 1 began. It was intense and very exciting. The crowd was loud and it was difficult to hear the announcers who were calling the play-by-play. Because of this, I had no idea how I was doing in comparison to the other contestants, so I just kind of zoned out and ate my wings as fast as I could. After what seemed like the fastest 10 minutes of my life, the round was over and I learn that I had eaten 65 wings! Paul Trovato ate 75, Travis Fowler had 70, and Juan had 61, which also happens to be how much Billy ate. I had just eaten more than the two contestants that had the highest totals at the Wing-Offs! I was pleasantly surprised, and wasn't feeling full at all. I was ready for the next round, but my neighbor Billy was not so much. He seemed very distressed, no doubt a result of him eating so much prior to the event.

As it turns out, one contestant was disqualified after Round 1 due to what's known in competitive eating as "reversing", aka puking. There happens to also be a tie for 25th place, so a total of 26 contestants moved on to Round 2. After a short break to allow more wings to be cooked, the next round got underway. My neighbor Billy tries a new strategy and pours two cups of water onto his wings. That doesn't help his digestion troubles and it was clear that the end was near for him. This round I unfortunately received a ton of drumsticks in my boxes, which unfortunately slowed me down. I end up eating only 27 more wings, but that turned out to be enough to qualify me for the final round! I overtook Travis Fowler, who only managed to eat 19 wings that round, bringing his new total to 89. Juan passed me up and got to 95 wings, and Paul improved to 101 wings. After 2 rounds, I had eaten 92 wings and started to feel the way Billy had felt after the first round. Apparently I wasn't the only one feeling the effects of overeating, as a contestant a couple of seats next to me suddenly vomited! My thoughtful spotter immediately led me away from the area for my own good as the crowd jeered in disgust as the cameraman projected the whole mess onto the two big screens. There was another short break while things got cleaned up and the results were tallied. It was then announced that the final five contestants moving on to the last round would be Paul, Juan, me, Travis, and someone named Earl.

Entering the third and final round, I knew that I was behind the leader by quite a margin. and the only way to win is for Paul to somehow puke. I had a good shot at 2nd place, and at the very least, if I kept up the pace, I'd end up in placing in third. The headband suddenly didn't seem like such an arrogant gesture anymore. The final two minutes began, and I gave it my best despite starting to run out of steam (and room in my stomach). As the final seconds ticked away, I went all out and must've stuffed like 4 wings in mouth. All I know is that it took me very long to swallow that last mouthful after the buzzer. As I was chewing, it was announced that Paul, who did not puke, finished in first place with a grand total of 116 wings, the exact same amount as last year. In second place was Juan and his red headband with 111 wings. To my amazement, it was announced that I had beaten out Earl and former champion Travis Fowler to finish in a respectable 3rd place with 105 wings!

So I didn't win the $5,000 grand prize. I didn't even get the 2nd prize of a flat screen TV and a bike. However, I did win 2 tickets to UFC 143, and I had my picture taken for the radio station's website. Plus I had a lot of fun and got to eat a lot of free wings. Would I do it again next year? I don't know...maybe. It was great, but training for and competing in Wing Bowl really took a toll on Project Sexy 2012. Maybe if I can get back on track and stay on track so that I won't have to worry about Project Sexy 2013, then I'll consider it. But that's a long time away, and for now, I just have to get ready to go to Mandalay Bay and watch Nick Diaz take on Carlos Condit.