PHILADELPHIA -- I have found the heart of the Philly sports scene ... and it isn't pretty.

You know Paulie, Adrian's brother in "Rocky"? Multiply him by the thousands, dress them in Eagles jerseys, fill each with a six-pack and stick them in a line so long it wraps around the Wachovia Center, throughout the parking lot and practically into New Jersey. Sprinkle some of these guys among the parked cars where they can urinate in semi-privacy. Carpet the lot with crushed beer cans and broken beer bottles. Throw in a cold wind and a winter rain.

Now, close the arena doors a half-hour before the competition begins because there is no more room inside the 20,000-seat center, forcing thousands of disappointed and angry fans to go home without the pleasure of watching 29 contestants eat as many chicken wings as possible in 14-minute rounds.

Oh, and did I mention? It's 5:30 a.m. on a weekday. That's right -- 5:30 in the morning.

"Oh well," one philosopher says after being turned away. "This just means we can go to the (strip) bar earlier."

Welcome to the Wing Bowl, an annual tradition that captures the worst of Philadelphia's sports reputation. If you think the Super Bowl is too understated, if pro wrestling is too high-brow, if Detroit's Devil's Night is too tame, this is the competition for you. Basically, the Wing Bowl is an excuse for Philly fans to drink excessively, crowd into the Wachovia Center, ogle large-breasted women and heckle and throw crap at contestants.

In other words, it's like the Flyers are playing again.

Begun a dozen years ago by a local radio station, the early morning wing-eating contest coincides with the station's rush-hour show and has grown so popular that the fans (almost exclusively male) charter buses and tailgate all night to make sure they can be among the 20,000-plus who get a seat. Overshadowing the Super Bowl when the Eagles aren't playing, Wing Bowl is such a Philadelphia institution that the Phanatic shows up, thereby lending an air of dignity to the affair.

Admission is free and there are no tickets -- it's first-come, first-in festival seating -- and the guy next to me said he got to the arena at 2:30 a.m. That's three and a half hours before the 6 a.m. start and there was no guarantee he'd get in.

It was like a Who concert, only less orderly.

I would not have gotten in had I not fought my way through the drunken crowd, nearly lost my reproductive capability while climbing a fence, elbowed my way through another pack of drunks and fortuitously come across Philadelphia Soul fullback Chris Ryan, whom I had interviewed earlier in the week. Ryan was competing in the contest and he slipped me a pass, then led the way through the mob to the employee entrance.

But hell. I had it easy getting into the Wing Bowl compared to the contestants, each of whom had to qualify through some extraordinary display of eating prowess. If you have wireless capability, you might want to move your laptop closer to the bathroom before reading these feats.

Rich the Butcher ate a pound of raw meat in one minute.

Hank the Tank ate five pounds of meatballs

Wing Kong ate 2½ pounds of liverwurst in seven minutes.

(See? I warned you. And it's about to get worse.)

Wolfman ate two pounds of shrimp with 160 mealworms. Obi Wing ate 60 live cockroaches. And if you think the mealworms and cockroaches sound repulsive, bear in mind that Cookie Jarvis ate six pounds of spinach.

It's nothing but quality family entertainment at the Wing Bowl.

And get this -- Uncle Buc ate a 1½ pound candle. No, I'm not making that up. He ate a wax candle. Which I can only hope was not burning at the time. Or, if it was, it was nowhere near Moses Lerman after he finished eating six pounds of baked beans.

I try to imagine what it would be like to eat such amounts of food so quickly. Worse, I try to imagine how these guys felt afterward.

"How did I feel afterward? I felt like (crap)," Wing Kong tells me. "Are you kidding?"

So why did you eat 2½ pounds of liverwurst?

"Let me ask you, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word liverwurst?" Wing Kong asks, correctly anticipating the inevitable grimace. "Right. That's everyone's reaction. No one likes liverwurst. But I do. Just not in 2½ pound quantities. But I figured no one else would be able to do it."

He's probably right about that.

The first two hours of Wing Bowl are devoted to the procession of contestants, in which the eaters and their entourages enter the floor and slowly circle the arena while fans hurl cups of beverages and assorted other garbage at them. It's like what you would get if you mixed the Olympics opening ceremonies with Mardi Gras and spring break and crammed it all inside a hockey rink. Except in place of each country's national anthem, throw in video of projectile vomiting from a past contest.

Continued...