Chestnut Claims Inaugural World Brain Eating Championship!

Experience counts. As the final seconds loomed at the first-ever World Brain Eating Competition at Zombie Pub Crawl, Joey Chestnut, the #1-ranked eater in the world, and Matthew Stonie, the man who has claimed more victories against the great one than anyone else this year, were bite-for-bite. It was anyone's contest. History would be made. But by whom? And what would it look like?

They'd blown past 20, 30, 40 brain tacos. In the final minute, they blew past the 50-mark. Twenty seconds to go. Nothing separated Chestnut and Stonie, the pair from San Jose, the pair who so often finish first-and-second, second-and-first at MLE events. Until the final mouthful. Chestnut's giant mouth came into play, his damp paws stuffing tacos into that great beyond at the death. Final score: Chestnut 54, Stonie 53.5. Close stuff.

Chestnut's haul of 54 Brain Tacos is recognized as a World Record.

The brain tacos were prepared by the AZ Canteen team, helmed by none other than Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods" series. The guy's eaten everything; brains wouldn't phase him one little bit. They sure didn't phase Chestnut or Stone, or Mark Williams of Iowa, who impressed with 17.5 in eight mins for third. Andrew "the Bear" Kogutkiewicz and the very-much-missed Bryan "Big Sexy" Beard rounded out the money positions. But look at the totals. This was all Stonie and Chestnut, people. Chestnut, as has been so often the case in his illustrious career, was the one to make the curtain call.

This contest took place at 5pm Central, on Saturday, October 12, 2013 at the vita.mn main stage at Zombie Pub Crawl, located at Portland and South 4th St in downtown Minneapolis, MN!

TOTAL PRIZE PURSE: $2,000! 1st Joey Chestnut, 54 - $1,000 2nd Matthew Stonie, 53 - $500 3rd Mark Williams, 17.5 - $300 4th Andrew Kogutkiewicz 12.5 - $150 5th Big Sexy 12 - $50 6th Sam Brummer, 11 7th Mitch Gillen, 10 8th Rikki Olsen, 9.5 9th Mary Bowers, 5 10th Joe Smith-Cunnien and Dave Senst, eating 2.5 each.

About Zombie Pub Crawl! The Zombie Pub Crawl is an annual occurrence in Minneapolis during which thousands of people pretend to be dead and wander the streets, boozing and dancing and carousing and having the time of their lives. Which is kind of ironic when you think about it, considering everyone’s dead. It’s like a cross between Mardi Gras and a George Romero movie. It began with 150 zombies in Minneapolis in 2005 and has grown every year since, as any good zombie mob does. There are many copycat events around the world, but this is the original. In 2012 Guinness recognized the ZPC as the “World’s Largest Gathering of Zombies.”