NEW RANKINGS: JOEY THE KING, SCULLIO ROBBED, UEPa REPRESENTIN'

The IFOCE gave us all a little gift by announcing the post-Nathan's rankings a little earlier than expected. It's the first time the rankings have been updated in eight months.

The biggest story, which isn't really surprising and also not agreed upon by everyone, is Joey Chestnut taking over the number one spot from Takeru Kobayashi. Good job to Joey for bringing the title of "World's Best Eater" back to American soil. Pat Bertoletti is number and three and, for the third time in the past year, Sonya has slipped one spot, this time to number five to make room for Eater X at number four.

Perhaps the biggest snubbing is the absence of the rookie upstart, Brad Scullio. Eagle eyed followers of the sport will remember he ate over 6 pounds in the recent Shoofly Pie Eating Contest to finish in the money at 6th place. Five days later he ate 26.5 HDBs to finish just 5.5 HDBs behind Bob Shoudt in the West Chester Nathan's qualifier. His deuce-plus was the second highest HDB count of the season (behind Brian Subich's 27.0) to not get a spot at the final table on Coney Island. It should be noted that both totals are more than Pat Bruss put up, who has a similar level of MLE experience, in shoofly and his Nathan's qualifier. Bruss also got a ranking of 23. Not saying Bruss didn't deserve it, I'm just saying Scullio deserves more love than that.

(UPDATE: The MLE rankings have been revised to include Brad Scullio at number 27. I should add, he's a Pennsylvania eater. UEPa!)

And I won't even get into some of the records of those lower ranked eaters. Actually I will. Sean Verma (#50) has only been in one contest (Nathan's Philly qualifier) and ate 10 HDBs. Richard Foley (#49) has only been in one contest (Krystal qualifier NINE months ago) and ate 17 burgers to finish 7th. Bert Chi was in one contest (Nathan's San Fran qualifier) and ate ?? hot dogs. A couple of those other guys, including Jesus Cabrales (45) and David Cohn (44), have no records whatsoever. At least according to OJRifkin's database, and if OJ doesn't have numbers on you, you pretty much don't exist.

I'll end on a positive note. HUGE congratulations to fellow UEPa members Steakbellie and Pete Miernicki. Steak vaulted WAY up in the rankings to #22 (he'll keep moving up this year) and Pete got his first ever ranking at 37. Both deserve it because they're easily among the ten most dedicated eaters on the entire list.