There’s no place better on Earth
by Not Sure
5 July 2026
I saw a headline, “Joey Chestnut wins again” and wondered if it had something to do with the World Cup of soccer. In my world, competitive sports don’t even occupy the space of a throw pillow on a sofa. “It’s a dream, it’s electric, there’s no place better on Earth,” said Joey Chestnut after winning his 18th Mustard Belt in 21 years. Chestnut is the champion of Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest which takes place on the 4th of July at Nathan’s on Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York City.
Chestnut’s degree from university was in engineering and construction management, but as a student, he won a fried-asparagus eating contest and the rest is history, as they say. His annual income exceeds $500,000 a year.
It was reported with some sadness and no sarcasm that his mother passed away in 2022, just days before he won his 15th Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. She had lived to see her son wolf down hundreds of hot dogs in the first 14 contests, but since her passing, his victories will be bittersweet.
The winner of the women’s division, Miki Sudo, is undefeated since 2014 when she unseated the reigning champion, Sonya Thomas, a South Korean-born American competitive eater known as The Black Widow (because she has often competed against men and won), and "The Leader of the Four Horsemen of the Esophagus." Sudo and Thomas don’t restrict themselves to hot dogs; they also compete with buffalo wings, turkey, and pumpkin pie.
Competitive eating appears to be a close-knit world. Miki Sudo is the #1 ranked female competitive eater and she is married to the #4 ranked male competitive eater, Nick Wehry, according to their website, The Hungry Couple. They have one child.
Joey Chestnut was engaged to competitive eater Neslie Ricasa, but they called the wedding off in 2015. Neslie doesn’t seem to be competing much these days. She married an elevator repairman, and they have two small children.
While there is no public data available regarding money spent on betting for Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, the total men’s purse is $20,000, with the winner taking $10,000. The women’s purse is said to total $40,000. Both Chestnut and Sudo took home $10,000 for this year’s win. Joey Chestnut proudly wears a Polymarket necklace, from the sports betting company. He has many endorsement contracts and an annual income of no less than $500,000. Miki Sudo’s yearly income is about the same as Chestnut’s.
Nathan’s Hot Dog Contest draws 35,000 to 50,000 attendees every July 4, and it is also broadcast on ESPN where it reaches 1 to 1.5 million viewers annually. Joey Chestnut said yesterday, on the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, that competitive hot dog eating is “the most patriotic sport we’ve got.”
Last night, a masked gunman opened fire on a family barbeque in Coney Island, hitting four adults and four children and leaving one woman critically injured. New York City’s first Muslim mayor, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Zohran Mamdani, said all the wounded children were expected to live. “There is no place for this kind of violence in our city. We will not tolerate it, and we will fight it with every single tool at our disposal. As we mourn alongside those whose loved ones have been hurt, let us also recommit ourselves to the work of building a city where every celebration is safe and every holiday is joyful.”
Italian immigrants provided cheap labor and had a large role to play in the expansion of capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th century. Some of the early Neapolitan crime gangs were from the Campania region of Italy, but many of the Camorra gangs in New York were American born. The Neapolitans from Brooklyn were often called the Brooklyn Camorra. Between 1885 and 1918, they were involved in extortion and labor racketeering, and they dealt cocaine to theatrical people and waiters. Their brand of Black Hand operations gave way to the organized tactics of the Sicilian Mafia when the Mafia took control of the area after the Mafia-Camorra War that started in 1915 and ended in 1917.
Jewish-American organized crime was sometimes called the Kosher Nostra, and they too dominated Brooklyn’s underworld. Murder, Incorporated was founded in the 1930s by Lepke Buchalter and Meyer Lansky. This enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate was composed primarily of Jewish gangsters from Brooklyn and carried out hundreds of contract killings for the broader organized crime network. Since the decline of the former Soviet Union, organized crime in Brooklyn has shifted dramatically, with the major criminal networks originating from the Brighton Beach area that many Soviet immigrants call home.
Robert I. Friedman published an important book in 2000 entitled Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America. Earlier, he wrote about Meir Kahane, the Israeli Orthodox ordained rabbi, convicted terrorist, writer and ultra-nationalist politician. Another of his books was Zealots for Zion: Inside Israels West Bank Settlement Movement. Due to the nature of his writing, Friedman received multiple death threats in his life and died at the age of fifty-one. His “mysterious” death was caused by heart failure resulting from a rare blood disease (also described as rare pneumonia) that he contracted in 1995 or 1996 while reporting in the slums of Bombay, India, on a story about sexual slavery and political corruption.
Currently, Coney Island has many competing street gangs, with the 59 Brim Bloods containing two major subsets, the FOG and Koney Sides. If I was a detective in Brooklyn, I might start with the 59 Brim Bloods to find the 4th of July shooter, or I might chalk it up to ‘just another day at the office’ and go back to chomping on my hot dog.
In this Redux of a marathon on Republic Broadcasting Network from June 18, 2007, Alan Watt filled in for Michael Herzog on The American Awakening and John Stadtmiller for his show, The National Intel Report. Michael and John were in New Hampshire covering a standoff between various government agencies and tax protestors/dissenters/evaders, Ed and Elaine Brown. Near the top of the three hours, Alan spoke with another stand-in host, Tim Wingate, who asked about the bullies who seem to dominate society. Alan responded, “This whole system, actually, that we think is ours, is not ours at all. It's theirs. They gave us the culture. They train us at school to go out and compete, compete, and success is the whole name of the game, to get to the top by every means possible. If you look at all the famous people, pretty well the old families in the U.S. or the British or any other government, the hereditary dynasties that you see in politics now and then—they all started off as either pirates or buccaneers, freebooters, dope sellers or whatever; warmongers.”
If you aren’t doing well in the job marketplace, just go online and place your wager on whichever competitive eater you think is going to be able to stuff the most food in their mouth. The next big event is the Saugus Wing Eating Competition on July 11, 2026. It just happens to be in New Hampshire, whose state motto is Live Free or Die.
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© Not Sure
Additional reading:
The Hungry Couple
https://www.thehungrycouple.com/
Joey Chestnut eats 66 hot dogs to again claim Mustard Belt at Nathan’s Famous contest
Masked gunman opens fire at Brooklyn family barbecue, wounding 8 including 4 children, police say
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/eight-people-shot-coney-island-four-children-nypd-rcna353013
Inconvenient Truth
https://www.villagevoice.com/inconvenient-truth/
Fifteen Alleged Members of Coney Island-Based Gangs Charged with Numerous Shootings Across Brooklyn
Transcript - Alan Watt on RBN - Three Hours Live Continuous - June 18, 2007