MLE was created in 1997 and has transformed American eating competitions from something of a joke into high-level events
Each man gobbled up 44 pork rolls in 10 minutes, but it was the last bite that earned one of them the $2,000 top prize in the very American pastime of competitive eating.
The winner, Geoffrey Esper, ate just a bit more of roll number 45 than his closest competitor, sealing his triumph in this chapter of a sport called Major League Eating.
The runner-up, James Webb, said that in most of the contests this year the winner down to the fourth place finisher were separated by "a swallow or a mouthful or a serving size."
The 35-year-old Australian who moved to the United States to compete full-time added, "It's very competitive."
The prize money is nowhere near enough to live on, says Webb, a bearded, healthy-looking man who gets by financially with help from sponsors and his YouTube channel, which has 115,000 viewers.