[Photos + Recap] The Winner Downed 19 Dogs In 15 Minutes At Lower Greenville Pub The Libertine’s 11th Annual Fourth Of July Corn Dog-Eating Competition.
Some 90 minutes before the 11th annual Brass Knuckle Beat Down began, Jeremy “The Endless” Pittman strutted into The Libertine rather confidently, immediately looking like the eater to beat.
The 27-year-old construction project manager definitely had reason to be believe he’d at least do OK in the Lower Greenville pub’s annual Fourth of July-held corn dog-eating competition; earlier in the year, he explained, he’d finished third in a Fair Park-hosted pizza-eating contest.
Then there was also the fact that last year’s corn dog-eating competition left a fairly low bar to clear: The 2018 Brass Knuckle Beat Down winner only managed to down nine corn dogs in 15 minutes — the lowest winning total this contest had seen in its first, only sometimes truly gluttonous decade.
Turns out, Pittman’s confidence wasn’t misplaced.
He jumped out to an early lead immediately after the 15-minute contest began and never looked back. Deliberately, he downed his dogs between careful sips of water, growing his collection of discarded sticks at a steady pace while his competitors’ pile sizes fluctuated wildly in size before finally stalling out. Eventually, Pittman would also pull his foot off the gas: About 12 minutes into the 15-minute race — once it became clear he’d built up an insurmountable lead — Pittman simply stopped eating. Leaving a half-eaten corn dog to rest on his plate alongside a few untouched others, he turned his focus to controlled breathing, making sure to not vomit (and thus disqualify himself from the win).
“I ran out of stomach,” he explained with a shrug after having watched the final three minutes in the contest tick away on the projection screen behind the bar.
No worries: The 19 dogs Pittman downed in 12 minutes was enough to earn him the W. The two next-highest eaters on the day tied at 14. Three more finished tied at 11. Any of those other five contestants would’ve taken top honors last year. But on this day, they ran into Pittman, whose performance was strong enough to tie the third all-time highest total in Brass Knuckle Beat Down history. (See year-by-year results at the bottom of this story.)
“I feel like a winner,” Pittman said once the clock hit 00:00 and a judge confirmed that Pittman’s total was the day’s highest.
He didn’t look so hot, though. His earlier, swaggering posture had long since given way to pained looks of regret and concern. The competition over, would he now finally let chunks fly?
“It’s 50/50,” he said with a laugh.
Mere seconds later, he bolted off in the direction of The Libertine’s bathrooms. The trophy presentation would have to wait.
As Pittman toiled away in the restroom, a man dressed as a corn dog — he’d apparently come to the bar to protest the competition, asking potential contest entrants to “please think about the corn dogs” — looked over carnage left behind on the bar tables used for the competition.
Enough people smiled at the visual to justify the cost of the costume. Probably.
A History of The Libertine’s Brass Knuckle Beatdown Winners (And Their Total Number of Corn Dogs Eaten In 15 Minutes):
2009: Jesse Hughey (16)
2010: Unidentified Minor* (24)
2011: Jesse Hughey (19)
2012: Matt Hanks (14)
2013: Nathan Biller (26)
2014: Andrew Chu (19)
2015: Andrew Chu (14)
2016: Corey Schiller (11)
2017: Corey Schiller (16)
2018: Andy Leister (9)
2019: Jeremy Pittman (19)
* At this point, the name of the 2010 winner remains lost to history. No media outlets covered that year’s competition, and none of our sources who attended that year’s event can recall his name. Memories of the second-annual contest — or is it lore? — recall the winner as a minor with professional eating aspirations whose father drove him down from Oklahoma to participate in the event. Legend (read: fuzzy, alcohol-addled memories) has it he ate 24 corn dogs in his effort. Regardless, the winner definitely ate 19 or more corn dogs: Three separate accounts from the following year note that 2009 and 2011 winner Jesse Hughey placed second in 2010 with 18 dogs downed.