4-Time National Buffalo Wing Champ Sat Out This Year To Give Others ‘A Chance’

This time last year, Trent Weitzel and his Weitzel's Wings crew — aka Double Dub's — added to their trophy collection when they made history as the first four-peat winner of the top prize at the National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, New York.

This year, the skeleton crew of Double Dub’s wingmakers who flew east for the annual competition came home empty-handed from last weekend’s competition, breaking their streak at the top of the Buffalo wing world.

But that was the plan all along. 

Weitzel was toying with this idea last year, and though he said stepping back from the competition was a “hard” decision, he has plenty of hardware to show for the crew’s dominance.

Double Dub’s won 16 awards during its six-year run at the festival, including that four-peat of the coveted fan favorite prize, cementing their Wyoming wing legacy.

“As much as I love winning, I want other people to have a chance to win, that’s how I am," said Weitzel, who founded the Laramie-based franchise of food trucks in 2013. 

Being sidelined, even if by choice, didn’t relieve the wingmaker’s competitive itch, however.

Keeping tabs on what was happening at the festival from afar, thanks to a steady stream of updates from people in Buffalo, gave Weitzel some momentary pangs of regret: “Oh, 100%, yeah.”

Still Winging It

Just because Double Dub’s opted out of the competition doesn't mean they were completely out of the festival.

Dallas Lopez, who runs the Rock Springs franchise, headed up a small crew of Wyoming wing-makers who went to represent Double Dub’s in a different capacity.

Working with festival founder Drew Crenza, Double Dub’s partnered with winemaker Bota Box for a wing-and-wine pairing — ensuring that Buffalonians who wait an entire year to sink their teeth into Double Dub’s award-winning sauces could still get their fix.

Better yet, festival goers wouldn’t have to use the tickets they purchased to enjoy Double Dub’s. 

“We thought that would be fantastic,” Lopez said of teaming up with Bota Box.

The only problem? The Bota Box folks severely underestimated the popularity of Double Dub’s, securing only 200 wings for a two-hour window.

That batch of wings was gone within about 25 minutes, so Lopez said he “tactically” acquired even more and then they were able to up the ante on the second day, doling out about 900 wings.

“We encountered a lot of people who were extremely bummed we weren’t out there competing this year,” Lopez said. “But the cool thing was we had an incredible amount of people wearing Double Dub’s attire at the event and we could go out in the crowd and tell them, ‘We have a limited amount of wings for this two-hour window, so come to the booth.’”

Wyoming-Buffalo Connection

Participating in the festival in a more limited capacity gave Lopez and the other Double Dub’s crew an opportunity to get a taste of the competition. 

Lopez tried at least one wing from every competitor, which meant a high wing tally for the weekend. 

“Let’s just say I’m not eating any wings this week,” he said.

This year’s fan favorite winner — Just Winging It, from Reykjavik, Iceland — is a crew of wing-makers Lopez and Weitzel have formed a friendship with over the years, after helping them with their festival debut a few years ago. 

The Icelanders returned this year with some new sauces, and Lopez said he was so impressed he predicted they’d be dubbed the fan favorite.

“I told them, ‘This is yours to lose this year,’” Lopez said. “The caliber of wings they had were fantastic.” 

Lopez also had a chance to reflect on how much the Buffalo-Wyoming connection has grown over the years, thanks both to Double Dub’s and a certain University of Wyoming alum named Josh Allen. 

Along with others from the Double Dub’s festival crew, Lopez was able to take in a preseason Buffalo Bills game at the team’s new stadium. He saw everyone ranging from an “itty-bitty” baby to adults of all ages decked out in Wyoming jerseys. 

“That connection has only grown stronger,” he said.

Hungry For Another Win

Even though they plan to sit out the competition again in 2027, Lopez and Weitzel are still hungry for more accolades — and they plan to spread their wings in other ways in the meantime.

Earlier this year, Double Dub’s expanded to Texas, adding to its current presence in Colorado, Wisconsin and, of course, Wyoming. And Weitzel said he’s frequently in talks with other people who are interested in franchising a Double Dub’s truck.

He’s also contemplating a different competition next year: The Kings of Wings Competition each June in the U.S Virgin Islands.

And Weitzel is also thinking about reclaiming the Guinness World Record for the most wings after the Double Dub’s record was surpassed. 

They plan to return to Buffalo again next year, even if they take another year off from competing. 

Seeing how the landscape evolves will also be interesting as they plot their eventual return, particularly if some other wing-makers have repeat wins. 

“We’re going to return at some point,” Lopez said. “We’ll see what happens in terms of competition and then give it a shot and see if we’ve still got it.”

And while this year’s festival was plagued by steady rain one day and lower attendance since it wasn’t held on the holiday weekend, Weitzel said the tickets collected for this year’s fan favorite versus what his crew has collected in years past means he’s not worried that the crew can’t make a comeback — whenever that might be.

If the Icelanders have a repeat win in 2027 or even go for a three-peat, then that would be enough to get the Wyomingites back in the mix. 

“We’re 100% going to put a stop to that,” Weitzel said.