Top-shelf eaters tackle Goliath Pizza Challenge in McKeesport

After a pizza-eating competition failed to draw enough contestants, a McKeesport pizzeria manager and a radio station founder called in the professionals. Pizza and Gyro Express and online station Idiot Radio sponsored the Goliath Pizza Challenge July 15. The challenge pitted two, two-man teams in a race to eat a 24-slice Goliath pizza. Although the contestants are primarily known as competitive chicken wing-eating, they eagerly went after the pizza. The team of Tim “Obi Wing Kenobi” Cain and Bob “Lord of the Wings” Kuhns won with a time of 8 minutes, 24 seconds. Idiot Radio founder Todd “Double D” De-Fazio approached Pizza and Gyro Express manager Jeff Anderson about a pizza-eating contest at the shop. “He was looking for several different businesses to help promote his station and he would help promote their business on his radio station,” Anderson said. “He started advertising for us, and I was advertising for him a little bit. I thought it was a great opportunity and was something fun, especially for the Mc-Keesport area.” DeFazio and Anderson originally planned the contest to be open to the public, however it did not attract enough eaters. Rather than cancel, De-Fazio got his three competitive-eating friends involved. “I think it was actually better that way to be honest,” Anderson said. “It was a lot more fun and a lot more competitive between those guys.” Cain has gained national recognition as a five-time ESPN Wing Bowl finalist. He won the 2017 Kennywood/Silver Star Meats Hot Dog eating title, and his list of personal bests include eating 5 1/2 pounds of chili in 5 minutes, 5 pints of ice cream in 4 minutes and 48 Dunkin Donut holes in 3 minutes. A three-time Pittsburgh Wing Bowl champion and five-time Kennywood hot dog champion, Kuhns holds world records for eating haggis and chili. Kuhns is a three-time Uncle Charlie sausage champion and a two-time Cleveland Wing Bowl champion. Pete “The Broken Wing” Maurizio joined DeFazio on the other team. Both have extensive backgrounds in competitive eating. DeFazio holds a world records for eating 77 hush puppies in an hour and a jar of peanut butter in 1 minute, 41 seconds. Maurizio’s personal bests include 50 hardboiled eggs in 10 minutes, 11.25 5-ounce pulled pork sandwiches in 8 minutes and 7 1/2 10-inch cheese steak hoagies in 15 minutes. With a successful competition behind him, Anderson is seeking a new challenge. He reached out to the Travel Channel and the “Man vs. Food,” show in an effort to get host Casey Webb to attempt to eat a 30-inch, 36-cut pizza. He detailed the recent event and said the shop has a really big pizza in case the programmers are interested in doing something here. “It’s not unheard of because they have been in North Versailles before at Primanti Brothers, so why not come here and try to beat our challenge?” Anderson said.