Hot Dog Champ Patrick Bertoletti Aiming To Eat 60 Hot Dogs In 2025 Contest

TMZ

Patrick Bertoletti is looking to build off the 58 hot dogs and buns he downed en route to winning his first-ever Mustard Belt at the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest last year ... with the champ telling TMZ Sports he hopes to eclipse 60 tube steaks this July 4!!

Transcript

00:00how are the vibes that you're feeling right now heading into uh the 2025 naven hot dogs

00:06unit contest defending the mustard belt a different vibe this time around for you

00:10yeah you know last year uh going in nobody expected anything from me and now i'm the

00:15gonna be the returning champ so i can't i can't do worse i have to do better and i have to make

00:21a statement so there's added pressure for me this year but i feel i'm always anxious but it's anxious

00:27in a good way where it's giving me energy and more drive to to do it again and you mentioned that

00:34like sort of like the added pressure how truly different does it feel like having that belt on

00:40your shoulder going into the biggest one of the biggest days of the mle eating calendar you know

00:46going in as a returning champ it does feel weird because i'm not it's not a feeling i'm used to

00:51being the champ but uh it feels good uh last year it was a lot of work this year it's been a lot of

00:57work as well so uh you know the unknown is the day of so just hoping that i have a good day and

01:04that i improve on my personal best so that's all i'm really hoping for and i know obviously you've

01:10been busy probably training to to get that count up last year it was 58 i know maybe it's hard to

01:15throw like a number you have in your mind out there but do you have right now like a a target goal

01:20in mind whether it's just crossing the 60 mark or do you have something in mind yeah i think the

01:25goal is to improve so if i could get into the 60 club uh i think there's only five or so eaters that

01:31are in there that that that is a goal but the first goal is to improve on 58 so but 60 would be great

01:38outside of that potential opponent who is your biggest competition right now that you're going in

01:45against i mean there's three there's myself uh there's jeffrey esper and there is james webb those

01:51are the the two or the three people i need to be worried about mentioned obviously it did it didn't

01:57feel the same last year but if you were to come back it would kind of like take the pressure off

02:00you because no one would be looking at you to go up every all the eyes would be on joey how would uh

02:05how do you think that would benefit you in terms of the competition of joey was right there would

02:09it would it just be like you don't got to stress about defending the bell you just got to worry about

02:14being and shelly yeah i i think uh so there's less stress and uh it just adds to the motivation

02:20because i'll be eating next to him and he is crazy fast out of the gate and that's just extra

02:25motivation and drive because a lot a lot of the times in these events you just kind of lose focus

02:30and if you have somebody like that next to you pushing the pace then you're going to be less in

02:34your head thinking about what you're doing and you're just going to be focusing on keeping up with him

02:39and uh it's just it's it's easier and better that way and then i guess you kind of mentioned this

02:45as well but like do you have anything to prove this year going in to the hot dog eating con is

02:51what i mean like hey my last year's victory was it a fluke uh i i can hang with the best one but do

02:56you do you feel like you have anything to prove to just like the average viewer that's going to be

02:59tuning in that day uh i think the average viewer still doesn't know who i am i mean they think i came

03:04out of left field which is hilarious because i've been doing this for 20 years so uh i mean when

03:10joey's there was a lot of people talking crap last year because he wasn't there and i get it so i don't

03:16really care it's like all i care about is improving and uh you know last year it was great to win but i

03:22was really happy i was happier that i set the goal and i achieved that and i ate better and i didn't think

03:28that was possible so now anything's possible and i'm done carrying what the internet or people or

03:34trolls think you know

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