27 March 2024 - Written By
We are excited to announce that our current World Champion Mike ‘The Molten Moose’ Jack will defend the World Title Belt for the second time against American Stephen ‘Fiery Redd’ Curgan in September at the Feasty Fest in Surrey, UK. We all know how tough Mike is, but Stephen is a newcomer who has taken the LOF world by storm by reaching the top of the current seasonal World Rankings in just 2 months!
Naturally, we have asked Regional Champions about their availability and whether they could step up to the stage and duke it out with Mike. Unfortunately, for reasons such as funding and calendar clashes, it was difficult to confirm any of the Regional Champions as World Title challengers for this event. Consequently, we looked at who has been gaining world records, supporting producers by buying challenges and climbing the ladder to the upper echelons of the rankings.
Because The Fiery Redd is not able to be at the Lake Erie Americas Belt Match in July due to family commitments, it seemed that this sequence of events presented an opportunity for a ‘Rocky-esque’ scenario in which a person shall indeed get a strategic and intriguing shot at the biggest prize in competitive chilli-eating at his first attempt!
It must be noted that we believe Alexandria ‘Never Better Club’ also deserves this shot due to her world ranking position and the fact that she has supported so many producers this year and has also broken numerous LOF world records. Alexandria is booked in for the Tampa Belt Match in a couple of weeks and is available for the Americas Belt Match in Erie. We are sure she will compete for the World Title in the future but did not want to add pressure to her achieving her goal of winning those competitions first. We have every faith that she will win but anything can happen in an extreme contest!
Alexandria may feel not worthy of going for the World Title if, for some reason, she does not win in Erie, and the person who actually wins that Americas Title Match could feel deflated knowing they had earned that right to compete for the World Title. There are all these intricacies that we at the LOF had to consider.
FeastyFest in Surrey, UK on 7th & 8th September, 2024, promises to be an extremely fun event for the whole family! There will be an amateur chilli-eating contest hosted by the creator of the flagship LOF Chug Challenge: Stephen ‘The Stinger’ Dixon. It is our job here at LOF to adhere to the festival organisers wishes to get them an international cast as well! They already have the contest for the UK people (although it must be stated – EVERYBODY is welcome)! We have been working hard to organise the World Title Belt Match against the clock so the competitors can plan (for example, get time off work and/or save up as this sport is still new and many people need to attract sponsors or self-fund)! Also, the organisers need to have the information for their marketing campaigns sooner, rather than later!
We strongly believe that The Fiery Redd has what it takes to give us a great battle against the formidable Molten Moose. We would like you all to know, as you mean a lot to us with your support for our organisation and the Chilli-Heads who make it fizzle, that after every single current Regional Belt Holder had been offered to go up against Mike at some point and their saying no for one reason or another means we can then move on to wildcards and people who we think will make a nail-biting finale with Mike.
The LOF rules incorporate speed ‘Death Race’ finales if nobody taps out, so we had to be mindful of people who have been vociferous in their disdain for our rules. A challenger must also have to be active now currently in the LOF community and making a mark! It shows a lot of commitment when competitors purchase challenges from producers, many of whom are small family businesses. Finally, the ability to break LOF World Records, or multiples thereof, plays a huge role in deciding a worthy wildcard!
We do not have any rules stating it is only Regional Belt Holders who can have a go at the World Title Belt – they have first refusal as mandatories, but if they say no or constraints do not permit, then the World Title can be opened up to wildcards and in this case we have the incredible Stephen ‘Fiery Redd’ Curgan! Like the movie Rocky – the excitement and anticipation of having a relatively unknown challenger whom no-one has seen in a chilli-eating comp step up to take on the World Champ will be like seeing Rocky Balboa take on Apollo Creed, but by eating the hottest peppers on Earth instead of punching each other’s faces in!
This will be one hell of a show! See you there!
