Why The Bachelorette is like a Hot Dog Eating Contest

Over the weekend we noticed another nationally televised competition that is quite similar to The Bachelorette.  The 96^th Annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest held on July 4^th at Coney Island. The contest pits professional eaters against one another to consume as many hot dogs as they can in 10 minutes. The winner (who typically eats more than 60 hot dogs during the period) gets a mustard colored champion belt and $20,000.

While downing 60 greasy hot dogs and courting Ashley Herbert evoke similar feelings (both are likely to make you nauseous), we actually wanted to point out another similarity between the eating contest and the Bachelorette. This year Joey “Jaws” Chestnut won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest after consuming 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes. The event played on ESPN and on televisions around the nation. But a much lesser publicized event was happening in the same city at the same time. Seven-time Champion and world record holder for eating hot dogs (among other things) Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi held an event on a roof top where he consumed 69 hotdogs in 10 minutes smashing Chestnut’s record. Consuming 7 more hotdogs is the eating contest equivalent of Kobayashi lapping Joey. Kobayashi was banned from the competition because he wouldn’t sign an exclusive contract with Major League Eating (yes, seriously, there is an organization trying to make eating a professional sport that wants to charge “athletes”). So Chestnut was crowned the wiener on national television by MLE president George Shea who would later call Kobayashi’s record a farce.

So what does this have to do with The Bachelorette? Just as the Nathan’s eating contest wants to find the greatest hot dog eater, The Bachelorette purports to find the best love match for Ashley. But both contests also want to make as much money as possible. So they end of squeezing more money out of the show and their contestants at the expense of “REALITY.” When Bentley was cast, Bachelorette producers were ecstatic about the ratings that would come from Bentley’s brutal honesty just as the Nathan’s contest organizers were ecstatic to have the iconic Kobyashi as their original hot dog eating champion. Yet Kobayashi and Bentley refused to play the game their handlers wanted them to play, and both of them walked. Now their respective contests are stuck trying to be the premier event while the champions sit on the sidelines. So who is the Joey Chestnut to the Bentley Kobayashi?

SPOILER ALERT (We think it’s a spoiler, but we don’t know for sure. Bentley fans believe it’s obvious given the Bentley rebound Ashley is on. Also, does it really matter to alert you when Bentley is gone?).

From what we understand, it’s the same guy who caught Ashley first off of the Bentley rebound (which she is still experiencing) – J.P. After seeing how hard Ashley fell for Bentley, it’s obvious that the love she feels for J.P. is a direct result of the Bentley rebound. At the end of the day, Joey and J.P. might get the coveted yellow belt and be crowned wieners on national television, those familiar with reality know who the real champions are: Bentley Williams and Takeru Kobayashi.

Before you make comments on this page, we want to identify that there are graphic analogies that could easily be made with a contest of consuming multiple wieners and the set up to The Bachelorette show—but we want to keep this site family friendly.

Bentley Apologists Hits 100,000 Mark on July 4th As Viewers Search for Bentley Conversations

Originally we were inspired to start this site because, as Bentley fans, we didn’t think it was right that such an awesome Bachelorette contestant was getting villainized.We wanted to celebrate the man and defend his words and actions. We figured that no one would care since viewers are usually content to drink the Kool-Aid and accept everything Bachelorette producers foist upon them. But just over a month later, we are happy to report that we’re “All Grown Up.” Our site hit 100,000 views today as Bacholrette viewers were searching for any thing they could find on Bentley.   While it may not seem like much for one day, we have significantly altered the Bentley conversation as now more people are starting to question the reality of the show and notice the douchebaggery of Chris Harrison.  Moreover, given the timing of this event and demand for conversations about Bentley, we believe this shows how truly American being a Bentley fan is.

So where do the Apologists go from here? Bentley was our horse in the Bachelorette race, and even although he’s gone for good, we don’t plan to pick another one. Especially if we have that many fans of the site.  Instead, we are going to act exactly like Ashley. For the rest of the season, we’re going to keep tabs on all the second fiddles [contestants still in the race who are clear second choices to Bentley], while still pining for Bentley and continuing to talk incessantly about him. Hope you’ll join us.

Chris Harrison Admits: “I [Also] Fell in Love with Bentley”

Bentley obsession runs deep on the Bachelorette this season. Indeed, we’ve already seen how fixated Ashley is on him [to the detriment of herself and the other contestants], but now new clues are emerging that suggest that Ashley was not the only person on the show who had strong feelings for Bentley, which may explain why the producers continued to push the Bentley storyline on viewers. Click on the video above. You can see Ashley’s usual blabbering on and on about Bentley (she mentions him 18 times during one part of an episode). But keep watching until the end of the video when Bachelorette host Chris Harrison finally admits that he too, fell in love with Bentley. Do you think he meant love for Bentley based on his ability to bring ratings or real romantic love? We’re betting the latter. Bentley’s irresistibility knows no bounds.

So Bentley said some things

People have criticized Bentley relentlessly for his “wreckless and meanspirited” comments about Ashley. We at the Apologists have argued that while entertaining, these comments are mostly overblown, taken out of context, or are simply examples of Bentley’s forthrightness. Let’s face it folks, Bentley calls them as he sees them. So, we found it amusing that some enterprising soul managed to pull together “every a**hole-ish thing The Bachelorette’s Bentley has said about Ashley.” While it may seen counterproductive for an apologist site to post something that could further damage our man’s reputation, we think it important enough to risk it for several reasons. First, it shows you what we are up against. Someone spent an awful lot of time splicing these clips together to convince viewers that Bentley really is a bad guy. Could producers be behind this? Second, Bentley’s entire affront to humanity comprises a grand total of 4 minutes and 34 seconds. That’s right, several weeks in a house with every move and statement being videotaped and recorded, and the most they could dig up was 4 minutes and 34 seconds. For all we know, he was an absolute model contestant who spent every other minute gushing about how great Ashley was. We have lots of evidence that everyone in the house seemed to like him. So Bentley said some things. So what. If anything, this video actually exonerates him, and reminds us why we were so blessed to have Bentley for those wonderful 2.5 episodes this season.

Team Bentley Keeps on Growing…Big League Chew and Nick Join Up

Well, well, well.  It looks like the producers failed again to keep a lid on the truth about Bentley’s genuine decency.  On this blog we’ve documented the nefarious practices of the producers at length: from egregiously editing footage to calling Bentley the “worst” contestent ever to preventing Bentley from speaking out in his own defense.

But so far, everyone that actually knows Bentley has nothing but great things to say about him.  Big League Chew guy, also known as Ben Castoriano, said that Bentley

seemed like a decent guy. No one had any major issue, I don’t think, with Bentley. He didn’t really make any trouble with anybody.

He further added that he takes what he sees on the television “with a grain of salt.”  (Sounds like he knows about the producers’ callous disregard of the truth just as we do.)

But that’s not all.

Nick Peterson also said:

But, I liked all the guys in the house I had no problems with the guys in the house including Bentley. As far as we knew he was a nice guy missed his daughter and wanted to leave.

Sounds like those who know Bentley best (and we’ve said this before), have nothing but the best to say of him.