Joey Chestnut will be in a hot dog eating contest on July 4th – just not Nathan’s

Back on June 11, Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest was rocked with a shocking twist that promises to shake up the competition… Joey Chestnut, who had previously won the eating competition 16 times, was effectively banned after signing a promotional deal with rival company Impossible Foods. But if you were looking forward to watching Chestnut consume a horrifying amount of hot dogs on July 4th, you still can’t – just not for Nathan’s.

Chestnut will instead “compete” in a friendly, exhibition match with four soldiers at Fort Bliss in Texas. Per Chestnut’s YouTube page, where the event will stream live on July 4, 2024, at 5 pm ET, the “all-beef hot dog eating competition” will “raise money for military families.”

The news was actually announced in a back-and-forth on X (formerly Twitter) on June 25, with the Fort Bliss Family, Morale, Welfare, and Recreation account casually inviting Chestnut to the base on Independence Day.

“Soldiers at Fort Bliss heard you might be looking for a place to eat on July 4th,” the account wrote. “We would love to invite you to our Pop Goes the Fort July 4th Celebration to celebrate with our troops and see if you can take on some of our Soldiers in a hot dog eating contest!”

Chestnut replied immediately, making it seem like perhaps this was a little bit of online theater rather than a spontaneous, surprise invitation, saying, “ABSOLUTELY!!! Thank you @FortBlissTexas for the invitation!! I'm honored to celebrate America's birthday with U.S. ARMY soldiers and their families.  Bring me your best 4 eaters and I'll take them down, combined!”

Further emphasizing that this was pre-planned and not Chestnut taking requests on social media, Hannah Fresquez, a Morning Forecaster for KFOX14 Morning News, added, “Oh hey Joey! Heard you’ll be in town on the 4th. Do you want to wake up eating hot dogs with our Morning News team??”

To which Joey Chestnut was essentially like, “lol, no,” explaining that he’s going to be eating hot dogs later in the day and is not a hot dog eating machine. But, very nicely he offered to coach them in lieu of eating morning hot dogs, and then evening hot dogs.

As this isn’t an official Major League Eating event, there’s no chance of Chestnut breaking the world’s record here of 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes. And similarly, Chestnut’s one-on-one match with Kobayashi, which will stream live on Netflix over Labor Day weekend, is also not sanctioned so it won’t break any official records.

However, speaking as a fan, there's clearly some acrimony between Chestnut and Nathan’s at this point: more hot dog eating is fun to watch. So you can check out Nathan's competition in the morning, Chestnut in the evening, and eat all the hot dogs you want, while you do.

You can watch the Fort Bliss "competition" below, when it's live on July 4, 2024 at 5 pm ET: