Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut Look to Gobble a World Record at Spike TV's 'MLE Chowdown: The Turkey Bowl'

Airs On Thanksgiving at 11 AM and 7 PM

NEW YORK, Nov. 7 -- Before bragging to your relatives about how much turkey you can eat this Thanksgiving ... Spike TV and Major League Eating present "MLE Chowdown: The Turkey Bowl" as the world's top eaters look to consume an entire 20 lb turkey in 8 minutes. The two giants in the sport, Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi, look to gobble a new world record as they battle it out with the other six top eaters.

"MLE Chowdown: The Turkey Bowl" airs on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 22 at 11:00 AM and 7:00 PM on Spike TV.

During the main event, Chestnut and Kobayashi will compete against current record holder for whole turkey consumption, Patrick Bertoletti, who ate 4.8 lbs of turkey in 12 minutes last November. Additional competitors include Tim "Eater X" Janus, Arturo Rios, Tim "Gravy" Brown, Rich LeFevre and Allen Goldstein.

The event's undercard will consist of other top eaters in a cranberry sauce eating contest. Appearing will be "El Toro" Jimenez, Juris Shibamaya, Micah Collins, Erik Denmark, Juliet Lee, Hall Hunt, Erik "Steakbellie" Livingston and Chris "Mad Greek" Abatsas.

The world's current #1 ranked eater, Joey Chestnut of San Jose, CA, took the eating world by storm this year when he defeated eating legend Kobayashi at the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest held in Coney Island, NY. Chestnut devoured Kobayashi's record by three hot dogs on his way to the title and now, Chestnut plans on showing that his country's tradition of Thanksgiving is all his, while Kobayashi looks to regain the throne as the king of competitive eating. Chestnut must also be wary of the whole-turkey record holder, Patrick Bertoletti.

"MLE Chowdown: The Turkey Bowl" will mark the third such event on Spike TV. Patrick Bertoletti won the most recent event, featuring Buffalo Wild Wings(R), totaling 4.1 pounds of wings in 8 minutes. Joey Chestnut fell just short as he took second place with 4.05 pounds and, in his very first time eating chicken wings, Kobayashi was third with 3.12 pounds of wings.

Christopher Martello is vice president, sports & specials, Spike TV. Scott Fishman is executive in charge of production for Spike TV. David Baer is executive producer for Shea Baer Productions, producer of the series.

Major League Eating(TM) (MLE) is the world body that governs all stomach- centric sport. There were 100 MLE events in 2006. Major League Eating was developed by the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE), which was established in 1997 by George and Richard Shea, who have represented Nathan's Famous since 1988 and were responsible for developing the July 4th International Hot Dog Eating contest into its current form. Major League Eating produces events in the USA, England, Japan, Germany, Thailand and Canada.

Spike TV is available in 96.1 million homes and is a division of MTV Networks. A unit of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), MTV Networks is one of the world's leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms.

SOURCE Spike TV
http://www.spiketv.com/