The Lord of the Wings - The Fellowship of the Wing

In keeping with our theme of trying to do new and exciting things during our last year of law school, we recently had what will hopefully become an Albany Law School tradition, The Lord of the Wings wing eating tourney. Fortunately a local bar and grill worked with us and gave us a really good price on 500 wings. I don't even want to think about how long before our contest they were cooked.

Like I did with roller derby, I spent some time reading up on competitive eating. There is a lot more psychology to this than you would think, at first blush.



The Lord of the Wings was an endurance event. We started with a field of 12 competitors, each required to come up with a nick name. -I chose "The Avenging Angel." I even made a shirt just for the occasion.




The field of competitors

Round 1 was 10 minutes and we were given a platter with 20 wings. After that round, the lowest 2 competitors would be eliminated. Then to round 2, which was 7 minutes, after which the lowest 4 competitors would be eliminated. Round 3 was 7 minutes, lowest 3 eliminated. Round 4 is the round where champions are made. 20 minutes, all you can eat wing-off, or wing into submission. All wings had to be completely consumed (gristle and all) to be counted. So there are your ground rules.

I knew I wouldn't be able to hang in for that long. There were some pretty legit heavy weights in this contest. In the world of competitive eating, I would have to be a sprinter, and not an endurance competitor. The Lord of the Wings did not play to my game. So I came to the contest with two goals: 1. I didn't want to be on the bottom of the pile. 2. I wanted to make it into the second round.



I started out of the gates strong. I've always had really stretchy skin, which I think helped me pack more wing into my mouth at once. I'm pretty sure that I had about 4-5 wings worth in my mouth at any given point in time, sometimes more. 3 days later, as I write this, I still have canker sores in my mouth from it. I was stride for stride with the leaders for the first few minutes. But Viju, the guy with his elbows in my ribs (he does the same thing when he plays basketball, so I'm told) ultimately pulled ahead. He wound up finishing his 20 wings in about 7.5 minutes, which is impressive for an amateur.



The craziest thing about this whole thing for me is that I felt just fine all the way up to the last 2 minutes of round 1. I started hitting the wall right about then. But I managed to hang in there, and get 18 wings before the clock ran out. Yes, that's 18 wings in 10 minutes.

As a side note, I eat healthy, and have for years. Once in a while I'll cheat and eat something that isn't that healthy, but that's pretty rare. I can't remember the last time I cheated at this magnitude. Those of you in the west can't find good buffalo wings, (I know. I've looked, and there aren't any out there) so you might not know what these guys are like. Bottom line: 18 wings puts an unholy amount of grease in your system.



So it should come as no shock to anyone that shortly after round 1 ended, my stomach decided to voice its opinion on what I was doing. In The Lord of the Wings, this is known as "a reversal of fortune," and results in immediate disqualification, even if it is a real crowd pleaser.


Hold it together, man!

I was able to hold it together and not puke, but it was the closest I've ever come to puking without actually puking. This is probably very fortunate, because I think had I lost it, we easily could have had something akin to this on our hands:

Warning: this video has a few cusses. So kill the volume if you don't want to hear it. Or don't watch b/c it's actually kind of disgusting, even though it's really funny.


My 18 in 10 minutes was enough to get me into the second round. It was actually one of the better scores for the round. Unfortunately, I couldn't continue. I knew that the first time I had another wing hit my lips, it was going to be a reversal of fortune of epic proportions. I have thrown up about 3 times in the last 20 years, so I'm not exactly eager to risk doing it again. So I came up lame, and couldn't go on. So that was the end of the road for me. It was a whole lot of fun anyway.

Additionally, the experience gave me a new-found appreciation for competitive eaters. My favorite has to be Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas. Seriously, open that link, and scroll down to look at some of the records she has. It's insane that a 98 pound woman can put away that much food.

Here are some other pics from the evening. This one is easily my favorite.




There are a couple of more pictures of me floating around out there that I haven't gotten ahold of yet. When I do, I'll post those too b/c I'm sure there's a gem or two out there.