The American Barbecue Showdown (Barbecue Showdown)

Come on over and join us.

Eight of the boldest smokers in America

are here to throw down the best barbecue of their lives.

Oh, my God!

- Get smokin'! - Look at that, baby!

Each pitmaster's talents will be challenged like never before.

Grilling, smoking, sides,

sweets, familiar meats, and...

ooh, not so familiar meats.

-Oh, raccoon! Aieee! -Ooh!

- 90 seconds! -Out of the way!

This is the biggest competition I've ever been a part of.

They'll be judged

by two award-winning pitmasters.

Let's talk about your asparagus.

-I don't know. I got a mouthful of fat. -I don't know that I like it.

-For the next eight weeks... -Giddy up!

...these cookers' smokin' skills will be put to the test...

I'm making my own herbal brush.

...grilled like never before.

-You have a plan. -A backup plan.

-There you go. A backup to the backup. -Do your thing, girl.

Thank you.

-She's screwed. -Five!

-At the end of each episode... -Four!

-So, are you confident? -No.

...one barbecue chef will be named star pitmaster...

That's tender as a mother's love right there.

Three! Who's goin' home today?

-...and another will get smoked out. - Two!

-No, no, no! No! Shh! -What?

For all the bragging rights

-and crown of America's barbecue champion. -Go on, girl!

-Aaah! - One! Show me the meat!

You brought the flavor to the party.

What's second place? First place loser.

This is the American Barbecue Showdown.

Welcome, y'all!

Come on over and join us.

All right, now. How you doing? How's it going?

How you guys doing? Yeah!

Are y'all ready for this?

Yeah!

-Been waitin' my whole life. -We made it!

-We're gonna light some fires... - Mm-hm!

...cook up some sweet, sweet meats,

and we're gonna find out which one of you is the very best there is.

All right! All right!

We can do that. We can do that.

Now, my partner in crime

to my left here is not only a comedian

and a barbecue lover, she's the sweet to my tea.

-Lyric Lewis. -Aww!

-Well, hey! - Nice to meet you!

As a New Orleans girl myself,

if there's one thing I do love, it is flavor.

So I am so excited for this competition

and all the meat sweats that's to come

-from all of y'all's food. -Yeah!

-I got you, girl! -Yeah!

Now, please meet our incredible barbecue judges.

I'm talkin' about a sixth-generation pitmaster, okay?

Making world-class Texas-style barbecue,

all the way from LA to Australia,

straight outta Compton, a crazy barbecuer named Bludso.

Please say hello to Kevin "Big Kev" Bludso!

-How you been, Bludso? -Whoo!

I am so fired up to be here with y'all.

I wanna go deep into your souls

-and see where your cooking comin' from. -All right! Come on now!

I wanna taste the food. I wanna taste the story at the same time.

Good luck to all y'all, baby.

Next up, this lady right here is a seven-time world champion

and the fiercest judge of all things barbecue.

The Mississippi smoke queen, Melissa Cookston.

All right!

Hey, smoke queen!

That is the woman that I... idolize.

The smoke queen!

Melissa cooks hog. I mean, how many women do that?

That is really a man's world.

She has whooped their you-know-whats.

And it drives 'em nuts. That's what I'm gonna try to do.

I've been standin' in your shoes thousands of times.

I need to have perfect execution.

Because I know what I've seen and I know what I'm talkin' about.

-Whew! -She's intimidatin'.

Yes!

All right, all right!

Now, listen, we know barbecue in America, it's all about history and personal style,

and the best way to really say all that together

is the barbecue combo plate.

-All right. -I'm ready.

You'll need to smoke two barbecue meats,

with two succulent sides.

You'll have five and a half hours to create your barbecue combo plate.

Five and a half hours.

- I'm used to overnight. - Yeah.

Not five and a half hours. Okay.

-'Cause I'm a super, super low-slow cook. -That's what make it a challenge.

-All right! Get smokin'! - All right.

- Whoo! -Let's go.

-Let's do it! -All right.

-Let's get some wood. -Got that grill, baby. Let's rock.

Kevin and I looked all over the country

for all sets of skill levels for this competition.

It'll be interesting to see what we get,

because sometimes, these backyard barbecuers

are just as proficient as some competitors on the circuit.

So, I'm expectin' some really good 'cue today.

Whoo! That's the way you do it.

I am the number one lady pitmaster in California.

That's the perfume of the meat gods goin' in there.

I'm glad they got a medic on here. Y'all gonna need it, because I tell you,

your tongue will slap you so hard back and forth after tasting the sausage,

you know, "Help me, help me!"

I've cooked anything from alligator tail, goats, a whole pig.

It's "Grubbecuing," 'cause anyone can barbecue,

but only I can Grubbecue.

-What your grub feel like, brother? -Ash.

-Ready to smoke? -A real honor. Yes, sir.

Barbecue is like a religion in North Carolina.

You've got the Baptists, you've got the Methodists,

and you've got the Holy Smoke.

-All right, man. -Let's go, let's go. One hundred.

-We girls gotta stick together. -Gotta stick together.

And get these guys outta here.

I compete in about 18 contests a year.

Don't underestimate me because I'm a woman,

because I have beat many a man out there many times.

I'm lit over here, baby, I'm burnin' on all three cylinders.

I consider myself to be, one out of ten, a ten in the barbecue world.

I'm comin' full force, baby, 110 miles an hour.

Hulk smash!

I wanna show them everything I can do and more.

I'm an IT technician. This is my first time competing.

So it's a little bit daunting to really grasp and take on.

Hickory is one of the things I go to with everything I cook.

Barbecuin' is a real competitive thing amongst the family.

Hell, my blood type might be, uh... smoky sweet barbecue sauce or somethin'.

A barbecue combo plate is the perfect first challenge

because every barbecuer in America

has made a barbecue combo plate.

That's what we feed our families.

Now, these barbecuers have everything you could possibly dream of.

Inside the barn...

you've got a stocked pantry,

and all the barbecue tools you could ask for.

And of course, top-of-the-line smokers outside.

You'll also have a meat locker

stocked with the meats that the country's best butchers dream of.

So these cookers are gonna show us

where they're comin' from with these combo plates,

and I cannot wait to see what they bring to the table.

I'll grab this whole shoulder right here,

see if we can't cook barbecue in five and a half hours.

I am a car salesman, so we don't get a lot of free time,

but when we do, I love to barbecue.

You know, buy a car, you get a free, uh, pork butt.

It works out good!

I'm from North Carolina, and we are a pork state.

I'm not sayin' North Carolina's the best, but we're the best.

I'm a little nervous about this challenge. I wanna cook pork butt.

Pork butt is generally used for making pulled pork

and usually takes about eight to ten hours to fully cook.

Little known fact,

it doesn't actually come from where the name might suggest.

It comes from the shoulder.

In late 1700s New England, it was known as the Boston butt,

and the name stuck.

I'm gonna be makin' pulled pork,

baby back ribs with a cherry barbecue sauce,

crackerroni and cheese, and a country sweet slaw.

Five and a half hours is not a lot of time to cook pork butt.

I usually do mine in ten hours.

Holy cannoli! You're gonna do a pork butt in five?

I'm gonna try.

What I did is I took a pork butt, and I cut it in half.

No bone in there, so hopefully, it's gonna cook a little faster.

When I eat this meal today, what am I gonna say about Ashley?

I wanna bring this home to North Carolina. That's my goal.

I got a, uh... I got a friend of mine that passed away.

I'm usin' one of his recipes today.

Me and Big Worm were, uh, teammates on our barbecue team.

Big Worm was my best friend.

Early in 2017, we find out that...

he's got a brain tumor.

Six months later to the day, he passed.

All this, we're gonna do it for him.

-Big Worm is behind you on this, right? -He's lookin' down on us.

He's lookin' down, for sure.

-Can't let Big Worm down, man. -No, sir.

-I know how it is, losing a homeboy. -No, sir. That's right.

-Good luck, man, all right? -Yes, sir. Thank you.

Everybody's already gettin' their meat and I haven't did anything.

The fun thing about bein' a Southern belle,

sometimes you can get by with stuff.

Like when I cook in contests,

I wear pearls, I look like a little girl,

they don't think anything about me, but...