Our resident Wing King Matthew Crowder defends his crown against Unit Sheffield’s preposterously spicy chicken challenge.
Last month, our designer Matthew Crowder (or Sir Wingsman of Yorkshire, as he’s taken to calling himself) set a new record at FirePit Rocks by eating 69 chicken wings. After a week or two of gloating, we’re now getting pretty fed up of it at Exposed HQ. He even signs off his emails with: “regards, Matthew Crowder CWK (Chicken Wing King, ya dun kno!)”. So when we heard about another wing challenge at Unit Sheffield, involving the hottest wings in the city, we thought we’d send his gloating mug down there and see if he could defend his crown. Only one person has succeeded so far, many have failed.
“I’m just gonna go for it,” says Matt. This man’s confidence knows no bounds. After strapping on the blue gloves and posing for some incredibly creepy photos, a plate of chips and 20 chicken wings were brought to the table. As I, our photographer and sales director hovered around in curiosity, all three of us had to scatter due to sheer volume of spice radiating off the things and up our nostrils. A smug grin crept across my face – Matt has met his match here. He may well be able to monster his way through 69 chicken wings, but the smell of these wings alone had me reaching for a drink. God knows how he’s going to handle eating 20 of them.
The stopwatch started: 20 minutes on the clock, 20 unbelievably spicy wings. Matt began the challenge by stripping each wing so he had a nice bowl of meat to plough through, presumably before the spice could take hold. A splash of hot sauce landed on our photographer’s hand, which he licked off (naturally) and proceeded to turn bright red. He was suffering from a cold for about two weeks and one lick of this sauce cured him. That’s the level we were dealing with. After about five minutes of wing-stripping, Matt became concerned. With 15 minutes remaining, he’d only got half way through the wings and hadn’t even eaten anything yet. He decided to just crack on and hope for the best.
The next four minutes was biblical-level entertainment. I’d wager that Matt had around five wings before his head started making some strange movements. He kept bopping up and down like some sort of strange pigeon. He’d succumbed to the dreaded hiccups. He was coughing, spluttering, hiccupping all over the place. Tears were streaming down his face. He was swaying side to side, saliva dripping everywhere. The Wing King’s crown was slipping. SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
“I’m done.” No way! Surely not. The King has been conquered. “I need some milk.” In just under eight minutes, the challenge was over. Matt had lost his crown, but now was going through a spice-induced coughing fit, demanding milk and ice cream like a spoilt little brat. It was over. The owner informs us that once the hiccups start, you’re on a downward spiral. It’s the first hurdle of any spicy challenge and Matt had fallen at the first jump.
Results:
Exposed: 32
Challengers: 43
Draws: 3
