Ultimate Wingmen and Women

One day we were talking about things we’d like to do as a radio morning show team and Blair said, “How about a Big Show wing eating contest?” And thus, the Ultimate Wingman competition was born. 

After dozens of entries and careful screening, Blair and Derek assembled teams of five listeners to attempt to eat the hottest wings possible. The smacktalk started a couple of weeks ago and continued while the teams assembled at St. Louis Bar and Grill on Richmond Street. Someone on Blair’s team stole the jug of milk Derek brought and it just went from there. Bowl after bowl of progressively hotter wings arrived and were consumed. It got to round five with one dropout on Blair’s team when Derek declared himself out! He took the ribbing with good humour.

Derek laughing

Blair celebrated Derek’s exit but he only lasted one more super-hot round before declaring himself out as well.

long view of the table of contestants. Blair has arms raised in victory while Derek advises one of his teammates

We really underestimated the will and the stomach lining of these competitors. Gordo was especially impressive. Nothing fazed him! I wondered if perhaps he had no taste buds at all but he insisted that’s not the case. He just loves hot food!

middle aged man wearing a Free-FM shirt eats wingsFinally it came down to whether we wanted to force the competitors to explode from overeating or to call an end to the hour-and-45-minute-long contest.  One of Derek’s teammates dropped out in round 8 so it was all evened up. The restaurant’s owner doubled up the grand prizes and awarded them to everyone.  Sarah, one of the managers, presented the highly coveted trophies.

small blond woman holds two awards. One is a gold-tone trophy and the other is a rubber chickenI will, literally, never hear the end of this!

Two photos featuring Derek and Blair with arms raised behind their respective teams