Inside the WingPole: Philly’s Spiciest Eating Competition

Club Risqué’s “Wingettes” surrounding Tiger Wings, the winner of today’s WingPole. / Photograph by Ray Massey

Jo Piazza is the host and producer of the Under the Influence podcast and author The Sicilian Inheritance which comes out April 2nd.

At 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning, I arrived at what might just be the most Philly eating contest in the history of Philly eating contests — the WingPole, an amateur wing-eating competition at the Club Risqué gentlemen’s club on Delaware Avenue. You know the one. It’s right behind the Target.

With the disappearance of Wing Bowl from the Philly scene in 2018, something was bound to take its place. WingPole seems to be that thing, at least for now.

The parking lot of Club Risqué was packed at 8 a.m. My mom friends and I got the very last parking spot — one that was definitely illegal, but it was early in the morning and we were willing to risk a ticket for both the spectacle and a potential Target run afterwards.

Inside the club is also packed. The eaters had been there since about 7 a.m. and they are champing at the bit to get started, pun intended. The crowd is rowdy and tipsy by 9 a.m., sucking down a variety of beverages from beers to dainty hard sodas. Entertainers dance around the masses while the televisions inexplicably show reruns of Charmed.

The women at work here are the first ones I want to talk to.

My biggest question for them, the one I have been wondering since learning about the existence of WingPole is this: Are the dollars sticky later and do they smell like wing sauce?

“Yes!” one Wingette screams.

Is it worth it? Yeah, everyone tells me. Cash is cash. No one is tossing out a Benjamin cause it’s got a little tang to it. And they let me know that it is an honor to be selected as a Wingette for the event.

The Wingettes and Tequila Kay / Photograph by Ray Massey

“Everyone is trying to get on the schedule to dance because it’s a great money day,” a young woman named Lexy tells me.

Another entertainer, who goes by the name Storm, agrees. “This is good money and I feel very respected here. That isn’t always the case at clubs. But I’m excited to promote what we are doing and WingPole is fun.” Storm tells me that the event-day cash is bananas. She’s paying for medical assistant school and hopes to become a cosmetic dermatology assistant soon.

“This helps me follow my passions. I’ve met so many people here who invested in my business,” she adds.

The women tell me it will be a crazy lucrative day.

The eaters are mostly local, but the competition’s sole woman eater drove in from Bethany Beach, Delaware, for the event. Tequila Kay, as she wants to be known in the competition and in this story, is a 48-year-old mom of five and grandmother of four. She’s a marketing executive by trade, and an Air Force veteran.

“My fourth grandchild was born yesterday,” she tells me proudly.

While the men in the competition mostly wear customized t-shirts with their own names on them, Tequila chose to embrace the spirit of the venue and wore a string bikini — with a G-string. As the only woman competing, she devised a military-style strategy going into Round One.

“My strategy is to distract and divert,” she says.

“How?” I ask

“My tits,” she replies matter-of-factly.

Tequila Kay, 48-year-old Air Force veteran and marketing executive, mom of five and grandmother of four. / Photograph by Jo Piazza

It looks like Tequila’s biggest competition is two local dudes. First, there is Mr. Mayo, a South Philly local from down the street named Stephen Buchanan, who brought his whole family along to cheer him on. Buchanan is a veteran of the Wing Bowl where he had to eat three pounds of butter and four pounds of mayo to qualify for the now-canceled competition. He’s optimistic about his own chances going into Friday morning’s match. He’s come in third place twice and believes this is his year. I ask whether it’s a distraction to have so many scantily clad women in the room while he competes and he just shakes his head with the utmost seriousness.

“Oh no,” he says. “I block it all out.”

The other contender to watch is David “Tiger Wings” Brunelli.

He wears a hunter-green Masters-style blazer emblazoned with the words “Tiger Wings” on the back, and he did not come to mess around. He’s a solid dude who looks like he could put down a whole chicken in a single bite.

The wings are being overseen by a guy called Floats. (He is easy to find because he wears a hat that says FLOATS.) A contractor by day, Floats leads the crew of judges. I ask if I can taste the wings before things get started and he seems surprised, but is accommodating and tells me to grab a plate.

“The wings are spicier this year,” he warns me. “Last year we used barbecue sauce and there was a lot of sugar and people got sick, so we’re trying something new this year.”

They are spicy. Also crispy and petite enough that I could probably eat about a dozen, but not more.

“You’d be terrible in a wing-eating competition,” my friend Tara informs me. “It took you more than 30 seconds to eat that one wing.”

She isn’t wrong, and I vacate the stage to leave it to the real contenders.

Jo Piazza eating a plate of wings. / Photo courtesy of Jo Piazza

There are three rounds of WingPole. The first round has nine competitors who will eat for 10 minutes. Each plate of wings placed before the eater includes five drumsticks and five flats.

Judges have discretion over what counts as being eaten. They determine how much meat is left on the bones tossed in the bone buckets. Too much meat left on the bone and they will dock a contestant parts of a point.

The contestants take the stage, each one escorted by their personal “Wingette” in shiny pink hot pants. Tequila carries a water gun in the shape of the male genitalia, which she plans to use, along with her other assets, to distract her competition.

The room mournfully sings the Philadelphia city anthem, “Fly Eagles Fly,” as if that will make Sunday’s Super Bowl any less tragic for us. The Rocky theme song begins and Round One commences.

It’s hard to watch Tiger Wings eat and not need to glance away with shame. He double-fists wings and his whole body gets into it, like he’s doing “the worm” while gnawing on three bones at a time.

Tequila concentrates hard. Her Wingette rubs her shoulders and whispers words of encouragement in her ear. She is daintier than her male competitors when it comes to stuffing chicken into her mouth, but no less speedy. The crowd loves her, as well they should.

By the end of Round One, everyone is sweating, patrons included. I start to feel like I will never not smell like hot sauce and cigar smoke.

WingPole competitors Chief Kickin Wing (left) and Mr. Mayo / Photographs by Jo Piazza

Tequila, Mayo and Tiger all make the cut for Round Two. There are six minutes on the clock for the second round and everyone is worse for the wear on the stage, but time is flying.

Only Tiger seems to have endless energy. My friend Jenelle remarks that he looks like a pelican swallowing fish whole out of the water. No one can compete with someone who doesn’t seem to have a gag reflex.

It becomes clear who the winner is, despite Tequila truly being the crowd favorite. The crowd chants her name, drowning out the cheers for all the other contestants.

But at the end of the final round, the clear winner is Tiger. He’s eaten 171 wings in total and receives the WingPole belt and the grand prize of $3,000.

“I put in the work beforehand,” he tells me. “I trained by eating some big meals and then fasting, and the wings were really solid this year.”

Mayo seems happy with second place and Tequila plans to return again next year.

“I’m not even a big wing person,” she admits. “But this is fun.”

As I walk out, Target and maybe a roast pork sandwich in my future, the women who work in the club tell me they look forward to some of the prize money being recycled back to them by the end of the day. They expect the afternoon to be a banger of bills — some of them sticky and spicy.