People Who Made A Living Playing Retarded 'Sports'

There are people out there making money--and we're talking real money--doing the type of things you and your friends do in moments of extreme boredom and/or drunkenness.

Competitive Eater: Joey Chestnut

Back then in school, I use to know a guy that ate for a living.. during hall weeks my friend will hop from hostel to hostel just to be sure no food was left uneaten; This food mongrel once ate 18 wraps of Eba and 2 Fufus in 1 sitting (this should be a national record).. Competitive eating has grown to the point that it now has its own International Federation, so that the world may chronicle the achievements of those who gorge themselves to the point of vomiting while the crowd cheers them on... and get paid serious cash along the way.

             

one of the biggest names in this 'retarded sport' is Joey "Jaws" Chestnut who burst on to the competitive eating scene back in 2005. The then 22-year-old, 230 pound Californian (no, not nearly as huge as you'd think) conquered a deep-fried asparagus eating championship, scoffing down more than six pounds of asparagus in under 12 minutes and probably making his pee stink for months afterwards.
                
From then on, it's been a never-ended chowfest for Chestnut and lucrative cash prizes to boot. In 2008 alone, he won $30,000 participating in just two events: Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest and the Krystal Square Off V World Hamburger Eating Championship. He also won or placed in several other smaller events, pocketing thousands more.

Organizers of the National Buffalo Wing Festival say competitive eater Joey Chestnut has devoured a record 191 chicken wings in 12 minutes. Chestnut set the record during a wing-eating contest at the annual festival in Buffalo. He beat the old record of 183 wings, set by Sonya Thomas, the Black Widow.

                     

Though we're not sure how much good the money will do him on the inevitable day that he finally explodes like a goldfish.

My question now is: Is it wrong to hold competitive eating contests when there are up to a billion starving people in the world? Or is it worth it to waste a couple hundred hot dogs if it inspires the rest of us to test the limits of our own spirit (or, in this case, how far we can stretch our oesophagus)? We do not have the answer