Long before he documented the Wing Bowl, the former WIP chicken wing-eating competition that drew thousands, filmmaker Pat Taggart lived it. "My friend's uncle got in as an eater one year, and he needed people in his entourage," Taggart recalled. "His name was Ali Blaba.
They were a family of butchers, so they put an actual real cow's carcass over his head. And he laid on this platform and we carried him in. "He was not memorable as an eater, but he certainly made a memorable entrance.
" Eye-popping details like these appear constantly in Taggart's documentary "No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story." The film, which recently screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival, follows the radio contest from its humble beginnings in a hotel to its climatic 26th year in the Wells Fargo Center, two days before the Eagles won their first Super Bowl. That victory effectively ended the Wing Bowl, long billed as an outlet for frustrated Philadelphia fans with no hope of a championship.
When it was still alive, however, there was nothing quite like Wing Bowl. The competition didn't just boast crowds or astonishing numbers — Molly Schuyler ate 501 wings in the final contest — but plenty of Philly flavor. Local entrants adopted personas akin to professional wrestling characters, complete with wigs, face paint and floats for their procession.
"For the most part, the people that were in it were people in our city and not famous people, but people driving buses and working at tolls, you know, blue c.