Wing Nuts: 'The Bear' prevails at Wing Bowl, Philly's annual fowl festival of gluttony
As The Stranger told The Dude in "The Big Lebowski," "Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes, well, he eats you."
Jamie "The Bear" McDonald, of Granby, Conn., chomped his way to victory at SportsRadio 94 WIP's Wing Bowl 21 Friday at the Wells Fargo Center. McDonald, 36, devoured 287 wings, five more than the runner-up, South Jersey postman Dave "U.S. Male" Goldstein.
The Bear is new to competitive eating, having just started in May.
"This is the biggest contest in the world," The Bear said. "First place is 20 grand. That's more than Nathan's," referring to the annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island in New York.
Joey Chestnut, who has won six straight Nathan's contests, is a three-time Wing Bowl winner.
The Bear is a Navy veteran. His older brother, Jason, is active in the Navy - stationed in England - and came in to help cheer The Bear on to victory. Interestingly, The Bear also competes in amateur bodybuilding contests. His wife, Cheryl, just became a professional bodybuilder.
Dave "U.S. Male" Goldstein, a pro eater who has participated in hundreds of contests including Wing Bowls, vowed to return next year to challenge The Bear. As Top Local Eater, Goldstein won a 2013 Nissan Pathfinder from Montgomeryville Acura.
Tiffany Heller, whom we've dubbed the "Good-Luck Wingette" as she has helped to cheer Bill "El Wingador" Simmons and Joey Chestnut to victory, served as one of U.S. Male's Wingettes.
Undeniably, the day's biggest star was Eagles coach Chip Kelly, whom WIP's Angelo Cataldi introduced to the crowd to thunderous applause and the Eagles' fight song.
"Wow. Just, wow. I wanted to get a feel for what Philadelphia is like. I'm kind of speechless," Kelly said when he first took the mic.
"I'm not making any predictions - all I know is we're going to work hard and represent this city the way it should be represented," Kelly told Cataldi, the Wells Fargo Center crowd and the listening public.
Cataldi, who missed two days from the radio show earlier in the week and revealed Wednesday that he'd had a mini-stroke, didn't seem to miss a beat and oversaw the carnival of gluttony and debauchery as well as ever.
We spoke to Kelly for a minute before he walked out and he said that he had heard of Wing Bowl while in town on scouting visits with the University of Oregon.
He wasn't confident that he'd get the warm reaction we told him to expect. "This town is awesome, but we haven't gotten our first down yet. I know how that goes," said Kelly, who wisely high-tailed it off the arena floor before being photographed with any Wingettes or getting hit with vomit.
Speaking of puking, the crowd roared when Baby Face, who competed in a Tony Romo Dallas Cowboys jersey, vomited. Of course, Baby Face, a/k/a Jordan Avalos, from Granbury, Texas, was disqualified as Wing Bowl's motto is "You heave, you leave." Two more contestants would follow suit, but none of this year's upchuckers were as legendary as Sloth.
Matt "Sloth" Dutton was inducted into the Wing Bowl Hall of Fame for his classic 2001 "reversal of fortune" in which he vomited chicken wings and lots of liquid in abundance. The footage has been shown every year since whenever a contestant is close to vomiting. One of the only other inductees to Wing Bowl Hall of Fame is Bill "El Wingador" Simmons. The five-time champion, who was arrested in June on charges of cocaine distribution, did not take part in Friday's festivities for the first time in 13 years. Cataldi felt that Wingador's charges could lead to taunts by the crowd for someone who had meant so much to the event.
Wing Bowl began in January 1993 in the lobby of the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel, now a Sheraton, and about two dozen people attended, (one of whom was my brother, Jon). Cataldi's co-host, Al Morganti, came up with the idea so that Philadelphia could have something of its own to look forward to around the time of the Super Bowl, which, back then, was an unlikely visit.
Porn starlet Jesse Jane said she was excited about appearing at Wing Bowl for the first time. She danced over the weekend at Delilah's (100 Spring Garden).
Jane was the most famous of all Wingettes, the crop of scantily clad women, many of whom, but certainly not all, work at local strip clubs. Strip clubs love to take part in Wing Bowl as post-Wing Bowl is widely regarded as their busiest day of the year.
Allentown's Alexandra Warner, 20, was named Wingette of the Year 2013. The exotic dancer at Allentown's Platinum Plus won a Harley-Davidson 883 Sportster from Barb's Harley-Davidson in Mount Ephraim, N.J.
As usual, the crowd urged women who were shown on the big screen to expose their breasts, and also as usual, those who declined were met with boos.
Two strippers in a private suite briefly performed a variety of sex acts, real and simulated, on one another in a desperate attempt to get on the arena's big screen.
Inexplicably, they didn't.
Some things are apparently too wild even for the Wing Bowl.
