Wing Bowl

This is how big Wing Bowl has become: Some folks actually worry that Philadelphia's mid-winter bacchanalia has strayed from its roots. When the WIP-sponsored event began at a hotel 14 years ago, attendance was free, and 150 people showed up. A ticket to today's Wing Bowl 14 cost $5, and the show had sold out the Wachovia Center before the gates opened early this morning. In years past, some people waited in line all night to get in. The annual chicken-wing eating contest has spawned a line of apparel and a documentary.

The predicted ice pellets never pelted. So the coast was clear for the early birds entering the Wachovia Center. And after Round One, the leader with a perhaps unprecedented 112 wings was a man from Clifton Heights. Suddenly, Wing Bowl 15, billed as "Philadelphia vs. the World," tantalized with a prospect as glittery as a Wingette's hair: Somebody local - "Gentleman Jerry" Coughlan - just might win. Incredibly, Philadelphia's Khalil Masso ("The Beast From the Northeast")

After banishing the big-time eaters, Wing Bowl has decided to charge a little more, when tickets go on sale Monday morning. But $7.50 each - up from $5 last year - has to be cheaper than any other Wachovia Center event. Especially since parking is free. Besides, where else can folks see like the likes of the Acidic Jew, who qualified this morning for the WIP-AM's snarfing extravaganza by alternating lemon eating with saxophone playing? Plus, there's the circus atmosphere, with costumed entourages, including skimpily costumed Wingettes, parading into the center, hyped to the gills by hyper sports-talk host Angelo Cataldi and cohosts Al Morganti and Rhea Hughes.

S USAN FINKELSTEIN does not encourage women to make any type of suggestive offers for tickets to the sold-out 610-WIP Wing Bowl 18 Friday at the Wachovia Center. "Although it depends how passionate they are about Wing Bowl," says Finkelstein, the local woman who faces trial for allegedly offering sex to an undercover Bensalem police officer in exchange for World Series tickets. She's now a part of Wing Bowl, and will be dressed as a "sexy leopard" on the ark float of contestant Hungry Hungry Hebrew , aka attorney Adam Taxin . Taxin befriended Finkelstein after interviewing her for a piece for a local paper that was never published.

LAST WEEK we told you how excited was to be debuting as a Wingette in the Wing Bowl on Feb. 5 at the Wachovia Center. But Chris Weinerman , a co-owner of the World Famous Gold Club (1416 Chancellor), where Carey dances Feb. 3-6, says 610 WIP has since told him Carey cannot be a Wingette because she's been in hardcore porn films. Really? Because Katie Morgan , a hardcore-porn actress who hosts HBO's "Sex Tips" and who is at Cheerleaders (Front & Oregon) next week, is slated to be a Wingette, as are Alektra Blue and Kaylani Lei , both porn stars, who will be there for Delilah's (100 Spring Garden)

Joseph Paul of Bellmawr, a Pennsylvania Turnpike worker whose nom de guerre is Tollman Joe, ate 82 chicken wings in 30 minutes to win WIP-AM's eighth annual Wing Bowl yesterday morning at the First Union Center. About 10,000 fans arrived before sunrise to watch the wing-eating, ogle the scantily clad women who coach the 22 contestants, and catch a boxing match between Pennsylvania Boxing Commissioner George Bochetto and listener "Arson Arnie" Adkins. (Bochetto won in the first round by TKO.)

L ISEL PARILLON 's taco title is only days old, but she already has her sights set on Wing Bowl. The 23-year-old graduate dentistry student at Penn hadn't heard of the annual 610 WIP celebration of gluttony (and strippers), but when we explained it to her yesterday she said she planned to try out for the contest, which hasn't had a serious female contender since pro-eater Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas won the crown in 2004. On Aug. 20, Trinidad-born Parillon and friends were heading into Drinker's West (39th & Chestnut)

One wore a black leather corset and fishnet stockings. Another showed off her country charms in a denim micro-miniskirt and a teeny T-shirt. But it was Lauren Young of Medford, N.J, strutting her stuff in nothing but a creative coat of paint, a tiny thong, and two well-placed red sequins who was crowned Miss Wingette 2004. Forget about world peace. Forget about poise. Forget about talent - unless of course you consider jumping on a trampoline while singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb," a particularly rare skill.

Just your average morning at the 11th annual Wing Bowl: You had Mize cracking full beer cans on his forehead. You had Elvis entering the building, seated on a toilet. And again, you had a championship eating performance from El Wingador. El Wingador - Bill Simmons of Woodbury Heights - ate 154 chicken wings for breakfast yesterday, smoking 25 challengers for his fourth win. The testosterone-fueled spectacle, hosted by WIP-AM (610), combined the pageantry of the Mummers Parade with the debauchery of Mardi Gras - and gave thousands a reason to call in late for work.

Their eyes were as glazed as the deep-fried wings piled before them, their faces slick with sauce. Defending champion Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, 99 pounds of Virginia speed, licked her fingers in anticipation. On her left, hometown hulk Bill "El Wingador" Simmons, four-time winner and crowd favorite, hurled himself forward like Rocky off the ropes. Looking on was a beer-stoked, flesh-stoked crowd of 21,000 that had packed the Wachovia Center by 5:30 yesterday morning for the Wing Bowl, Philadelphia's annual super-charged bacchanalia and Super Bowl pre-party.

After more than a decade as one of the Philadelphia area's best-known eaters, Bill Simmons has cleaned the barbecue sauce from his chubby fingers and stopped stuffing his face, at least competitively. "It was just time, time to move on to something else," said Simmons, better known as El Wingador, five-time champion of Wing Bowl, that spectacle of gustatory excess held annually at the Wells Fargo Center. At the suggestion of his friend Kevin "Heavy Keavy" O'Donnell, a Wing Bowl champ who was retiring from competition, the Woodbury Heights resident took up the cudgel in 1999.

FOX 29 WEATHER ANCHOR Sue Serio and husband Bill Vargus , a former sportscaster at the station, co-star in "Love Letters" Feb. 29 - March 4 at the Media Theatre for the Performing Arts. The couple live near the theater and had been impressed with productions there. They were invited to perform together in "Love Letters," which Serio says is "traditionally done by people who are a couple. You basically read the letters people have written to each other over 50 years," she said.

Anyone doubting our evolutionary tie to other apes should check out that Philadelphia festival of food and fun known as Wing Bowl. The annual event has some striking parallels to behavior outlined in the article "Chimpanzee Hunting Behavior and Human Evolution," which appeared in the magazine American Scientist. Chimpanzees sometimes "go on hunting binges, in which they kill a large number of monkeys and other animals over a period of several days or weeks," the article states. The hunting is done mostly by males, though there are a few female hunters and the party is joined by many other females in estrus (heat)

"IT'S ALMOST SURREAL to me that he is part of our stupid wing-eating contest," said Sportsradio 94 WIP's Angelo Cataldi about Japanese eating machine Takeru Kobayashi 's participation in Wing Bowl XX on Feb. 3 at Wells Fargo Center. Kobayashi, a longtime champion of the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, had been Cataldi's white whale. "For the last 10 years I've wanted Kobayashi in the event," Cataldi said yesterday. Cataldi saw Kobayashi inhale Twinkies on the " Wendy Williams Show" but does question his endurance.

JENNA JAMESON makes her Wingette debut at Sportsradio 94 WIP's Wing Bowl 20 on Feb. 3 at the Wells Fargo Center. The retired porn queen-turned-actress will appear at the city's most prestigious sporting event on behalf of the World Famous Gold Club (1416 Chancellor), where she will hang out after the Wing Bowl. Doesn't look as if she will be dancing onstage, but adult-film sensation-turned-politician and reality TV star Mary Carey dances at the club Feb. 1 to 4. Carey, who hints she may move to Philadelphia to run for mayor or possibly governor in a few years, is honored to serve as Wingette for the fourth time.

WHEN JONATHAN "Super Squibb" Squibb eats chicken wings, he rhythmically bobs his head up and down. He shimmies his shoulders. He sways his hips. He looks as if he's dancing to a song no one else hears. He looks happy. But his demeanor while eating wings can't compare to what Squibb felt after he won 610 WIP's Wing Bowl 19 for the third straight time. "Total euphoria," Squibb said. Squibb, a corporate accountant from Berlin, N.J., devoured 255 chicken wings, beating out Bill "El Wingador" Simmons' 254. Despite the tight race, it was a record-shattering year in terms of cluckers consumed for the annual eating competition.

Do you hear that giant slurping sound coming from South Broad Street? That's chicken wings - thousands of them - being devoured by the 27 participants in SportsRadio 610 WIP's Wing Bowl 19. The pre-Super Bowl competitive chicken wing-eating contest was scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. this morning, for the 19th time since its debut at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel in 1993. While only a handful of people attended that first Wing Bowl, thousands are expected at the Wells Fargo Center this morning for the sold-out event.

At Moriarty's Pub on Walnut Street, they have two guys just cutting celery and carrots into sticks for three days before the big day. At Wings to Go on Castor Avenue in Rhawnhurst, the line for to-go orders will start at noon. And at Chickie's & Pete's on Packer Avenue in South Philadelphia, they will be hard pressed to restock the wing fryers after hosting the hectic Wing Bowl weigh-in Thursday night. Every year on Super Bowl Sunday, wing fever hits its peak. Moriarty's alone says it will sell a ton. Nationally, it is the biggest wing-eating day of the year, with 100 million pounds of wings hitting plates at parties and bars around the country.

One of Philly's top restaurants could be getting a makeover. The Four Seasons Hotel confirms that it has explored the option of bringing in an independent restaurateur to run the signature Fountain room, which appears at or near the top of every guidebook there is. Sources tell me that restaurateurs including Marc Vetri and Stephen Starr have been spoken to and that one plan calls for an exclusive entrance to be carved out on the building's...

T ANYKA RENEE , who plays for the Philadelphia Passion, is one of eight Lingerie Football League players to be pictured in the shower in the February Playboy . Renee, of Jamaican descent, wears nothing in the magazine, but wears No. 12 on the football field, where she plays offense and defense for the Passion. The Connecticut native works as a nutritionist in New York and stays in Philadelphia four days a week during the season. The Passion, undefeated this season, takes on the Tampa Breeze Jan. 29 in Jacksonville.