ALL HAIL THE SQUIBB!!!!
By Joseph Santoliquito
610WIP.com
The pageantry. The gluttony. The listing statuesque blonde who couldn’t walk straight. The many in the Wachovia Center parking lot that couldn’t stand straight. Cleavage. Stained shirts. Stained underwear. Flashers. The tanned skin. Porn stars and strippers. Florescent skin paint. Eagles chants. Other chants beginning with “Show us your …” Debauchery. Wings. The missing champion. And a lot of fun.
The 18th Wing Bowl had it all Friday.
It’s hard to believe something that started in a hotel lobby in front of maybe 30 people in 1992 now generates national attention and has become a must-see event for any and every fun-loving sports fan—of age—who ever grew up in the Philadelphia area. We even get eater bios and credentials like it was a Flyers, Sixers, Eagles or Phillies game. Even the mainstream media, once major bashers of Wing Bowl, now take it seriously—they better, talking up everything from the quality of puking to Snooky nipple slips.
Someone even confused Big Daddy Graham with Big Daddy Kane.
Hey, ya gotta love that!!
Every year there has been a little intrigue attached. This year it momentarily involved “Super Squibb,” Jon Squibb, the defending Wing Bowl champion. His entourage didn’t know where he was just minutes before getting on his float and being introduced to the throng of 20,000.
For someone who entered this with a nonchalant attitude, Squibb wore the game face of a defensive tackle getting ready to play in the Super Bowl. One of his entourage explained Squibb was off meditating on a mountain top in getting fired up to eat. Another said the nonchalance is just a façade. “Jonny is serious, real serious, he wants to stomp these guys.”
For the second-straight year, the Squibbmeister did, out-eating everyone in winning the Ford F-150. He did with some added panache, blowing away the field with a near-record 238 wings. There was one record set--there were three pukers.
But for Squibb, it was so easy it was ridiculous.
Maybe a few hours of solitude, which seemed appropriate, since Squibb was dressed in a Superman outfit, was helpful.
“It was, I had to take two hours to get away and focus, because I took this very seriously, despite what it might have looked like, I took this very, very seriously,” Squibb said. “I was just getting fired up before I ate. I think I just lost track of the time and they had to find me.”
Squibb may be facing a new challenge next year, when professional eaters will be allowed back in and Squibb can go head-to-head with current record-holder Joey Chestnut.
“I think he can do it, I think Squibb can beat Chestnut, he’s ready,” said the legendary El Wingador, Bill Simmons. “Squibb is great. I’ve been talking to him about taking seriously and how this defines him. I told him to just go in and attack, attack, attack. I told him to blow these guys away.”
There’s no question that he did!!
Joseph Santoliquito is an Emmy Award-nominated sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area. He can be contacted at JSantoliquito@yahoo.com.
