By Daniel D'Addario

Netflix’s “Unfinished Beef,” a live competitive eating special, follows in the plodding footsteps of the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, Coney Island’s Fourth of July extravaganza. But what was even more vividly reminiscent of the human-interest freakouts Fox aired at the turn of the century, like “Man vs. Beast” and “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” The contest between professional hot dog eaters Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi aired live on Labor Day from Las Vegas and had more than a hint of only-in-America decadence and excess.

The special, which ran a little over an hour, built up to the 10-minute showdown between Chestnut and Kobayashi, including short, produced packages introducing both sides. "I like to put an obscene amount of food in me. That's what I like to do," Chestnut told viewers as he demonstrated the exercises he does to keep his jaw strong. (This is no small feat; Kobayashi's career, we're told, was derailed by a jaw injury in 2007.)

Chestnut and Kobayashi have been rivals their entire lives in the competitive eating world, in which contestants are judged on how much they can eat in a limited amount of time; by the time they were popping sausages into their mouths, their mutual animosity seemed clear (if tenuous in its origins), as were their differences in style. Chestnut, whose previous style of dipping his hot dog buns in water to lubricate them was expressly forbidden by Netflix rules, seemed cheerful and unfazed—a machine on a mission from which nothing could deter him. Kobayashi, who ultimately finished 17 dogs behind Chestnut, brought a defiant humanity to the contest, a sense of struggle, as he rocked back and forth, urging the food to go down.