Will this be El Wingador's last Wing Bowl?

Last year, in a heartbreaking, jaw-aching defeat, he ate 254 wings - and lost. Lost by one wing to Jonathan Squibb. The loss would stick in his craw, if he had a craw. "All the years I've competed in Wing Bowl," he says sadly, "when time is up you have 1 minute to finish what's in your mouth. Time was up, Squibb had a ton of food in his mouth. They crowned him, he still had food in his mouth. They interviewed him with the crown on and he still had food in his mouth. People tell me that someone finally walked up to him with a napkin and he got rid of the food in his mouth.

"Ahhhh, Wing Bowl, sometimes they flip-flop on the rules."

Ahhh, Wing Bowl, that orgy of gluttony, nudity, obscenity. A Wing Bowl without controversy is like life without laughter, a day without sunshine, a stripper with her top on.

"My greatest fear in life," says Angelo Cataldi, the WIP-radio morning host and ringmaster of this annual circus, "is that this will be our legacy . . . that we will leave behind naked girls, empty beer cans and a ton of mostly eaten chicken wings. They will look back and say, 'Who started this and who can we sue?' As the years go by, I heap more of the credit on Al Morganti. Because without Al, none of this could have happened."

It was Morganti's idea. "The Eagles would die early, back then," Cataldi's co-host recalls. "I was traveling, covering hockey. Buffalo was wings. I had two staples in my diet: pizza and wings. The Bills kept going to the Super Bowl. They'd lose, but they kept going. The people in Buffalo had something to watch. We had that dead period leading up to the Super Bowl. Why not steal something from Buffalo? Wings."

The first Wing Bowl was held in the lobby of the Wyndham Franklin Hotel in late January 1993. . . . We had about 200 people there, watching from the overhang [mezzanine]. A guy named Carmen [Cordero] won it."

"And then they asked him what he'd do next," producer Joe Waechter remembers. "And he said, 'Get ready for Wing Bowl 2.' "

"And that," said Cataldi, "was the first time we thought there was gonna be a Wing Bowl 2."

Morganti, the quintessential second banana on the "Morning Show," laterals the credit back to Cataldi. "I had an idea, he ran with it," he said. "It's salesmanship. He is the guy who could sell ice cubes in Alaska."

The venue has changed several times. The prizes, too: $20,000 to the winner, a car, rings and other bling, trips to Mexico for the best entourage, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle to the bounciest wingette.

"It went to another level when that guy from the Mummers came in covered in gold," Morganti says. "Called himself the Golden Buddha. Got us on the front page of the Daily News."

"And then the wingettes became a big part of it, and that ramped things way up," adds Cataldi. " . . . It went from an eating competition to an event. And that's when we had to start selling tickets. We nearly had a riot one year, turning away thousands at 5 o'clock in the morning, the Walt Whitman Bridge backed up."

"The cops recognized me," said Rhea Hughes, a vital part of the "Morning Show." "They were turning away cars, but they let me in. And now, my husband has 30 friends at our house at 4 in the morning, kind of a pregame thing. And then they go to Wing Bowl. It's a boys' morning out."

"Some bad things do good," says El Wingador. "This brings people together. It doesn't make us a bad city. New Orleans has the Mardi Gras and that doesn't make New Orleans a bad city."

*****

His first Wing Bowl was No. 7. "Heavy Kevy was a friend. He won it twice, retired undefeated. He asked me if I ate wings," El Wingador recalls. "I said I wouldn't stop. I'd keep eating until I dropped. They called me 'Chicken Man' back then because I ate chicken every day. He named me 'The Wingador,' but my wife thought it sounded better if we made it 'El Wingador.' I told her I was going to make El Wingador a household name.

"I had to do an eating stunt to qualify. We decided to do a Spanish theme, so I ate 15 Taco Bell chicken burritos in 28 minutes. I walked in, sat down, thought of it as a bar eating contest. Then I looked around, and said, 'Uh oh, this is more than a bar contest.'

"I weighed 262 then. I'll be 330 for this one. I used to eat like I was at a picnic. Now, I eat like I'm going to the electric chair.

"I got a Liberty Bell for winning that first one, given to me by the mayor, Ed Rendell, at the time. It's on my mantel. And, oh, yeah, a trip to Cancun."

"Heavy Kevy wanted him to pick up the baton," is the way Cataldi remembers it. "Kevy proposed to his girlfriend and vowed to stop eating. So he brought El Wingador into it. He was a godsend; local guy, good eater, good guy. Last year, I almost cried for him. They handed me the results and I tried to hide my feelings. I looked down and Wingador knew right then he'd lost."

El Wingador doesn't talk about revenge, because that's a dish best served cold. It doesn't mesh with his training schedule.

"I get up early, do 2 miles on the treadmill," he says. "After that, I'll eat 10 to 15 pounds of food during the day, a couple of pizzas, some roast-beef hoagies, a couple of pounds of pasta. For dinner, it's mostly protein. And then, after dinner, I go to the gym with my wife, Debby, do the cardio work I need. I go to bed feeling great, wake up feeling great.

"That first year, the only thing that got tired was my jaw. So, down through the years I'd strengthen my jaw by eating frozen Tootsie Rolls. Cram six or seven in my mouth. They don't dissolve, so you have to keep on chewing. I'd go through 10 pounds a week."