Every Super Bowl weekend for the past 15 years, Philadelphia has celebrated a Bowl of its own. Wing Bowl began in 1993 as a small, two-man chicken wing-eating competition - a radio promotion designed by 610 WIP talk show hosts Angelo Cataldi and Al Morganti. Since then, it's become one of the premier professional eating competitions in the world and, moreover, a Philly institution. In the early morning of February 2, a crowd of 20,000 fans filled the Wachovia Center to take part in the gastronomical mayhem of Wing Bowl 15: "Philadelphia Against the World."
Reporter Stephen Morse decided to experience it himself, from the qualifiers to the main event, from blind competitors to near-naked Wingettes. Along the way, he learned that Wing Bowl isn't just a competition - it's a way of life.
Wednesday, January 31
11:00 p.m.
30 hours to Wing Bowl
The Gold Club, Center City
The girls begin to eye me as soon as I make it past the bouncer's strict ID check. There are more than a dozen, topless, scattered throughout the dark mirror-clad interior of The Gold Club. A busty Latina rubs her ass against one of the two poles on stage while dancing to Justin Timberlake. But I'm not here for a lap dance. I'm here for the 28-year-old, 325-pound, dark-skinned man sitting in the corner: Jermaine Pressley, a.k.a. Black Death.
Black Death came to The Gold Club tonight because he ate a baby. Sure, the baby was made of pudding cake, but still, the man deserves some credit. There were no hands allowed, so he had one of his female friends feed it to him. Ten minutes later, the baby was gone.
By performing this stunt live in the 610WIP radio studio, he qualified for his second Wing Bowl - arguably Philadelphia's biggest sporting event of the year. Only here can a bunch of macho men (and one 95-pound Asian-American woman) eating chicken wings arouse more excitement on Super Bowl weekend than the main event itself. Out of more than 20 eaters last year, Black Death made it to the top five. This year, he's in it to win.
As "Eye of the Tiger" blasts through the speakers, Black Death gets ready for a quick practice session with his Gold Club sponsor, Chris Weinerman, the establishment's co-proprietor and general manager. Likely about 300 pounds himself, Weinerman is a perfect practice buddy. "I'm just trying to help Black Death try to take it all the way home. We're going at it every night, eating as many wings as I can to push him to go faster and faster. He's eating 25 wings in under 3 « minutes. His biggest competition is probably Joey Chestnut, last year's winner. If Jermaine doesn't win it, he's coming in second. But I think he's gonna win it."
And then the practice session begins. Black Death and Weinerman sit at the bar, tearing through wings and timing how long it takes to eat 60. The strippers cheer them on, promising Black Death sexual favors if he wins. In less than ten minutes, it's all over. The plate of wings meets the same fate as the baby, and Black Death is still hungry.
Perhaps Philadelphians love Wing Bowl because it gives them the chance to win big. Since 1983, no Philadelphia team has won a major sports championship, and with the Eagles out of contention for this year's Super Bowl title, the wing-eaters are the city's best shot for glory.
The theme of this year's Wing Bowl is "Philadelphia Against the World." Twenty-one local eaters are taking on five members of the International Federation of Competitive Eating. The pride of the city rests on their stomachs.
Black Death brings a small but loyal entourage with him wherever he goes. Gene Altieri, 31, an "effects guy who does makeup and other preparations for horror films," built a casket for Black Death's theatrical entrance to Wing Bowl. Pageantry is as much a part of the event as eating: each competitor is expected to create a themed float to circle the Wachovia Center before the main event.
Black Death isn't a professional eater, but he is a food professional. "I work at Bertucci's. I'm one of the top cooks there." Altieri chimes in, "He's a monster; he eats babies!"
Black Death was hardened in the United States Marine Corps, where he served for four years in San Diego and Okinawa, Japan, and rose to the rank of corporal. After he got out of the service, he drove "big rigs for a while" before resettling in his native Philadelphia.
Sydney Nagle, a fit, preppy 25-year-old who bartends at Copabanana on South Street, is Black Death's roommate in South Philly. "Jermaine is an eating machine, I'm telling you. I saw him put away four [McDonald's] Quad Stacks and go back for more complaining that he was hungry. He's a monster, man. Whenever I buy groceries I'm like 'Stay the fuck away from my shit, man!' Whenever I go shopping, I don't let him go anywhere near my food." I ask Syd how Black Death became involved with competitive eating. "Probably from birth, man. It's ridiculous. Last Wing Bowl, he put away 170-something wings, but they only counted 120 or so. You have to clean the wing to the bone. I'm sure there was a little meat left on there. But who can claim that they've eaten 170 wings? Not many can claim that."
I ask Syd if he's a regular at The Gold Club, and he quips back, " I don't usually come to strip clubs. I don't pay for anything I can get for free."
Thursday, February 1
5:00 p.m.
13 hours to Wing Bowl
Chickie's and Pete's, South Philly
All the Wing Bowl contestants come down to Chickie's and Pete's, Philadelphia's premier sports bar, for the ceremonial weigh-in. And the Wingettes are here too. These scantily-clad quasi-cheerleaders accompany the contestants while they parade around the stadium and then cheer them on during the event. It must be a prerequisite for these girls to have lower back tattoos, because I've seen more of them in the past 20 minutes than I've seen in my whole life. The best (hottest) Wingette receives a free trip to Cancun. Many of the Wingettes are employed at area strip joints, but some are friends or relatives of the contestants.
I catch up with 19-year-old Leslie McKenna, a Wingette for Black Death. Leslie says, "I found out two days ago about this whole thing. I started working at The Gold Club like a week ago and my boss was like 'You're fuckin' doing this,' and I'm like, 'Alright.' I don't even know what this whole thing is. I just moved here from New York."
Wing Bowl Commissioner (and former 76ers President) Pat Croce stands by the bar. He took over the role last year, after former Commissioner Eric Gregg died suddenly of a stroke. The 400-pound Gregg had been an umpire in the Major Leagues, and tomorrow he's set to be inducted into the Wing Bowl Hall of Fame.
Before the weigh-in, Croce tells me: "What I love about the Wing Bowl is it brings all the eyes of the world on Philadelphia. It's the combination of the Mummers with a championship event. There's competition, but at the same time the pageantry is second to none."
On the competition's wider meaning, Croce says, "The Super Bowl might overshadow the Wing Bowl for the rest of the world, but you come to the Delaware Valley - Wing Bowl blows it all away."
Just then, someone taps him on the shoulder. The weigh-ins are about to begin. One at a time, each contestant steps up to center stage surrounded by hundreds of drunk fans. Cameras catch the contestants' every move as they sit down one by one on the Chickies's and Pete's throne - a fully functioning scale.
The strangest moment of the night comes when 28-year-old, 340-pound Bernard Taylor, aka The Blind Beast, steps on stage. His guide, manager and friend Darryl Green, wears a Confederate flag visor. Taylor, stricken with glaucoma at age 16, is black and completely blind. "My friends told me about this whole thing," he says. "I'm all ready to go, and I think I can win this thing." To qualify for Wing Bowl, the Blind Beast ate a 16-inch vegetable pizza in under eight minutes. He thinks he's an inspiration to other disabled people. "They think they can't do nothing because they're handicapped, but we can do anything that normal people can do."
Friday, February 2
4:00 a.m.
2 hours to Wing Bowl
Wachovia Center, backstage
The contestants seem calm as they prepare backstage - they're eager to show how all the practice has paid off. In an extra-large homemade dumpster sits Dave Moyer, aka Dave the Dumpster, a 325-pound eater from Trappe, Pa. His manager, Rick "the Manager" Russo, stands nearby. After watching Wing Bowl in the past, Dave decided, "We can do this. This is nothing." Russo chimes in, "So we did nothing." Last year, they didn't make it past the second round. "We trained with wings right out of the oven, and during the competition the wings were room temperature, which was cold! This year, for practice, we refrigerate the wings and have Dave eat them right out of the fridge. They're ice cold." What distinguishes them as a team? "Absolutely nothing! I'm just a very loud-mouthed manager with a very large man who eats wings."
The Dumpster and Russo have been friends for 14 years. "We don't work," Russo jokes. "We work one day a year, and that's Wing Bowl day." In reality, both are self-employed; Dave owns a cleaning business and Russo owns a landscaping business in Trappe.
Russo tells me about his encounter the day before at Chickie's and Pete's with the Blind Beast and his entourage. "I brought three girls with very attractive breasts, and I let all the blind guys in his entourage read Braille across their nipples. Then I started joking around with the blind guys. I'm like, 'See ya tomorrow,' and they're like, 'No, we'll see you. We'll keep an eye out for you.'" He continues, "I told them I'd kick their ass if they're really not blind because they felt my fiancee's tits. And they're like, 'Dude I'm blind, I'm blind.'" Russo considers it an act of charity. "I let them touch the skin. It wasn't just on top of the shirt. They were lovin' it."
Friday, February 2
6:00 a.m.
Wing Bowl -- The Main Event
The overhead lights go dark in the Wachovia Center. An obese woman in a wheelchair sings a horrid version of the National Anthem. She misses half the high notes. But the crowd shows one of its rare moments of respect and politely cheers.
But then it's back to normal. The cheer "show us your tits" starts as a hum and gets progressively louder. At some point, the jumbo screen pans to a woman dancing around, flailing what may or may not be natural, bona fide bosoms. Eventually, she lifts her shirt, just as the focus shifts to an image of a fat man. The crowd boos for a few seconds until the woman comes back on-screen. She reveals her well-formed upper body to some 20,000 fans (probably less than 3% female) ranging from teenagers to senior citizens.
In the center of the floor, a partially clothed woman stands tall in a glass case and strikes a mock Liberty Bell. The crowd roars, and the competitors start to eat. Round one is underway, ten minutes counting down on the main screen.
Wingettes stand with plates holding 20 wings apiece, cheering their eaters on and waiting to feed them the next batch. The contestants' faces are all the same: brown, stained with wing sauce, captured live on screen in a bajillion pixels. As time passes, some look like they're ready to puke while others seem like they can go all day.
It's difficult to keep track of how Black Death, Dave the Dumpster and the Blind Beast are doing relative to the overall field, but it's clear that they're not keeping up with the professionals. When time expires, all three fail to qualify for the second round. I catch up with a dazed Black Death as he steps down from the podium. His white makeup runs from a mixture of sauce, sweat and tears. What is there to do other than watch the rest of the competition from the stands? His ten minutes of fame have come to a disappointing end. It's back to the usual routine: work and regular portion sizes. And it's time for them to lose the 20 pounds they've gained in training.
Once the results of round one are announced, things look mediocre at best for Team Philadelphia. But there were some unlikely local heroes like U.S. Male, a New Jersey mailman put at 200:1 odds who is among the leaders of the pack.
The crowd loses its enthusiasm as the stage crew folds away tables and places the remaining contestants on a higher, smaller pedestal for round two. Fewer Philadelphians survive this time around. Some, like the Beast from the Northeast, are on the verge of vomiting the whole time. He finished round one in second place (91 wings), but forgot the Wing Bowl's Golden Rule: pace yourself. Now, he's fallen far behind.
None of the winners hail from this region. California's Joey Chestnut easily wins for the second year in a row. He's followed by Patrick Bertoletti - 12 wings off the mark. In third place is 2004 Wing Bowl Champion Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas with 169 wings. Not until the fourth place announcement does any local flavor show up, when "Gentleman Jerry" of Clifton Heights gets the nod. As the best local competitor, he goes home with a car.
After all the fanfare, Wing Bowl 15 can't help feeling like a disappointment - especially when the most entertaining local stars don't make it to the finish. But for all its faults, there's something to be said for a competition that can bring together a blind man, a 90-pound Asian girl, and steroid-abusing macho men at the crack of dawn on Super Bowl weekend. "The World" may have won this time, but the Philadelphia Wing Bowl tradition lives on.
