"Nobody believed in me but my family, but I knew I could do it," said Squibb, a Wing Bowl newcomer who's "in career transition right now."
What was his secret?
"It's more up here than down here," he told us, pointing first to his brain, then his stomach.
Squibb said he would defend his crown next year at Wing Bowl 18.
"Second place ain't no better than fifth place," said "Not Rich" Razzi after the competition. Razzi, 51, an architect from Schwenksville, was considered a front-runner after knocking out 70 wings in a qualifying event for the contest.
"Damaging Doug" Canavin, who was favored by Morganti to take the crown, was eliminated after the first of three rounds. He argued that WIP's Rhea Hughes announced that he had cleared four plates of 20 wings but that he had only gotten credit for 70 something. "They f- - - me all the time," Canavin said of WIP, "but I'm not gonna complain."
Canavin, of Fishtown, who has made a reputation with the Wing Bowl crew as a whiner, said that even if he had stayed in the contest he would have been no match for Super Squibb's 203 wings.
"Gentleman Jerry" Coughlan, of Clifton Heights,
favored by some to take the crown, didn't get past the first round.
"Arson" Arnie Adkins had a tooth pulled so he could still compete in the Wing Bowl. "I broke a tooth chewing Tootsie Rolls to practice," Adkins said.
His dentist advised he skip the event but said he had to yank the tooth if Adkins insisted on competing. Adkins, an electrician from Sewell, N.J., took a Percocet before the event, and polished off 75 wings.
The wingding featured 27 contestants, several of whom were disqualified from competition after vomiting. Wing Bowl Commissioner Pat Croce strictly enforced the event's "you heave, you leave" policy.
