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The essence of competition is the reason we learned to walk upright and turn dumbass animals into footballs. But competition isn't always a good thing. For example, our cloven-hoofed opponents are such sore losers they're trying to kill us with biological flu weapons. Assuming we live through this pork terrorism, we may need to rethink some of the ridiculous things we've done in the spirit of our competitive spirit. Especially in the field of professional eating. Read more just inches below in The Top Eight Reasons Competitive Eating Sucks.
#8: It's Not Good For You. Lots of sports are dangerous: plate spinning, karateball, masquerade poontanging, junior masquerade poontanging... however, in sports like these, you can eliminate the danger by performing well. Boxing is theoretically safe if you punch your opponent in the face hard enough and first enough, or if you lure them onto a trap door hours before the fight. But when your fight is against hot dogs, it's in fact
more dangerous when you perform well. Millions of colons don't lie: In the battle of Man's Insides vs. Hot Dog, Hot Dog always wins. According to their website, professional eating is held up to strict safety regulations. These must be unusual since, from a safety standpoint, swallowing six hot dogs is already like swallowing the front part of a gun, or mocking God in a bear cage. So I imagine these regulations involve more than a Heimlich Maneuver poster... probably some kind of body armor for the first rows of spectators to avoid any burst-ribcage shrapnel. Also, their legal department requires former champions to be bibbed and on site to eat the evidence of any detonated contestants and the witnesses.