The Time Cowboy Kent Rollins Beat Bobby Flay. Here's What Really Happened

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It sounds like the plot of a Hallmark movie: big city slicker visits small town America and learns a life changing lesson about the importance of authenticity. But when "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay" headed to Texas to challenge the chuck wagon cuisine of "Cowboy" Kent Rollins, it played out more like a drama movie — for Flay, that is.

For Rollins, it was a career launching pad. And he wasn't the only future cooking star to make his Food Network debut on "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay." For instance, you may not know that Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond also rose to prominence by being challenged by Flay on her own turf. But Rollins was maybe the most unlikely, as prior to appearing on "Throwdown!", this authentic cowboy had more experience roping steer than mugging for the cameras.

So what really happened when Bobby Flay took on "Cowboy" Kent Rollins? And how did their epic showdown change the trajectory of the humble chuck wagon cook's life? Hold onto your chaps, because when it comes to old fashioned prairie cooking, it turns out that Flay is all hat and no cattle.

Though Kent Rollins was new to competition cooking when he made his unexpected debut on "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay," he was already a cowboy icon. Born in 1957, Rollins wrote in an article for Guideposts that he participated in his first cattle drive when he was just 8 years old. Taught to cook by his mother, his career as a cowboy chef took an unexpected detour when his father died, leaving him in charge of the family ranch.

It was just one of many tragedies Rollins faced in his journey, but he never gave up on his dream of becoming a cowboy cook. Returning to the range, Rollins would get up before dawn to make meals for hungry cowboys. Along the way, he learned the stories of the old West. Hoping to preserve those traditions, in 1993 he bought and restored an 1876 Studebaker chuck wagon.

That proved to be a turning point for Rollins. In 1996, he was named the Official Chuck Wagon of Oklahoma by the state governor, and in 2002 he won the "Best Cowboy Humorist and Storyteller of the Year" award from the Academy of Western Artists in recognition of his skills as a raconteur. Those accolades helped draw the attention of the Food Network, and in 2010 they decided to bestow their own honor on Rollins: a surprise ambush by celebrity chef Bobby Flay.

With over 475 episodes, "Beat Bobby Flay" is one of the most popular cooking shows ever. The premise is simple: chefs venture into Flay's kitchen and challenge him to a cook-off. Despite challengers choosing the dish, however, Flay has a surprisingly strong win percentage, to the point where some fans think "Beat Bobby Flay" is rigged.

But "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay," which ran for eight seasons from 2006 and 2010, flipped the formula: Flay instead traveled to another chef's kitchen, challenging them to make whatever their signature dish happened to be. That would seem to give the other chef the advantage, except for one crucial detail: Flay's challenge always came as a complete surprise to the other chef, giving Flay plenty of time to prepare in advance for this blindsided competition.

That's what happened when Flay ambushed Kent Rollins in season 8, episode 10 of "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay." Knowing that chicken fried steak was Rollins' signature dish, Flay went into his test kitchen to try and put "a Northern spin on this classic Southern dish." Assisted by chef Miriam Garron and his then-wife Stephanie March, Flay worked to come up with a recipe that could beat Rollins at his own game. Though buttermilk-dipped fried chicken is one of Bobby Flay's best known recipes, chicken fried steak isn't actually chicken at all, it's steak. So Flay came up with a different secret weapon to try and beat Rollins: bacon bits.

Arguably the most controversial aspect of "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay" was the show's bait-and-switch format. Kent Rollins was lured onto the show thinking that he was filming a segment for a Food Network special called "Chuck Wagon Cuisine." Instead, partway through filming this bogus special, Bobby Flay suddenly rolled up and challenged him to a cooking competition out of nowhere.

Flay might not have expected the reaction he got, though, because unlike most of Flay's competition, Rollins actually didn't know who Flay was. He revealed in a comment on his YouTube channel that when Flay appeared, it was the "first time I ever seen him."

Several years later, Rollins posted a video to his Facebook page where he pulled back the curtain on what went on behind the scenes. He explained that based on how the crowd was reacting, he thought the surprise VIP guest was former U.S. President George W. Bush.

"I'm thinking, 'I bet it's George W. Bush, or maybe one of them famous movie stars.' And here come around the corner this guy ... And then he told me who he was, and he wanted to challenge me to a throwdown, in my kitchen? ... I told [my wife] Shannon, 'we're going to see how tough this feller is.'"

One thing Bobby Flay hadn't been able to adequately prepare for was the sweltering Texas heat. Kent Rollins revealed in a Facebook video that it was 96 degrees on the day they held their throwdown. And it only got hotter as Rollins deployed his secret weapon: a 385-pound, portable, cast-iron, wood burning stove named Bertha.

Rollins wasted no time in stoking the fires, turning an already blistering day into a scene straight out of Dante's "Inferno." Flay was drenched in sweat, saying at one point, "Whew! Got some heat going on here in Texas!" And Flay's then-wife, Stephanie March, summed it up when she said, "I prefer an air-conditioned kitchen in New York City, thank you very much."

Bertha wasn't just a gimmick to psyche-out the city slickers. It's the stove that Rollins always cooked on, and it gave him a big competitive advantage, as he had years of experience working with the stove's extremely high cooking temperature. He told Flay, "Bertha has one heat most of the time, and that's just hell for hot."

Flay countered by deploying his own special techniques, including tenderizing the steak with a meat mallet rather than the sledgehammer Rollins playfully offered to lend him. And, as planned, he also topped his dish with bacon bits, hoping the additional texture and flavor would secure him the win.

With the cooking done, Rollins and Flay invited a crowd of locals to sample their dishes, but not before they tried each other's chicken fried steak. Flay was impressed by Rollins, saying, "Oh, this is good. Oh, this is good. Very, very tender. And it's thicker. See, I always thought it was about the outside, but the meat is really obviously the star of the show here."

Rollins was also complimentary, saying, "It's a pleasure to eat your cooking, it is. Very good." But he questioned the bacon. "That's a breakfast deal in our part of the world." Some members of the crowd agreed that, while yummy, Flay had maybe taken too many liberties. "Bobby Flay's chicken fried steak? It's good," one diner conceded. "But it's not a Texas chicken fried steak. Kent's chicken fried steak? It's meaty. It's tender. I can cut it with my fork."

But the actual judging was left to two legends of the prairie: chefs Homer Robertson and Sue Cunningham, both multiple world chuck wagon champions. The dishes were judged on authenticity, texture, and flavor; Robertson critiqued Rollins' gravy, saying it overpowered the dish slightly, while Cunningham took aim at Flay's secret weapon. "The bacon," she said, "more of less for decoration. I didn't taste the bacon." In the end, there could be only one winner, and the more authentic dish of "Cowboy" Kent Rollins claimed the day.

Though Kent Rollins may not have been known to most TV viewers when he appeared on "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay" in 2010, his down-home cooking and authentic prairie wisdom quickly endeared him to a legion of new fans. And based on the comments Rollins got when he uploaded highlights of the episode to YouTube, those fans absolutely loved watching him beat Flay at his own game. Viewers reveled in the fact that a self-taught frontier chuck wagon cook beat a chef with some of the top training in the world, especially since Flay's fancy style seemed to bite him in the end when he overthought the dish.

"When I saw Bobby put bacon on the gravy, I knew it was over for him", one YouTube viewer commented. "No need for all that."

"I knew Cowboy Kent would send ole Bobby out to pasture with this one! Sure 'nuff," another fan wrote. And one viewer commented, "I am a fanatical Southerner, and have yet to meet a Yankee I thought could chicken-fry anything. Bobby gave it a great shot, but I knew Kent was comin' out on top."

Not long after "Cowboy" Kent Rollins defeated Bobby Flay, "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay" was taken off the air. Food Network never officially explained the decision, but some of the more uncomfortable aspects of Flay's encounter with Rollins had long been a lightning rod for fan criticism, especially the bait-and-switch and ambush tactics.

"Is it just me, or is Throwdown With Bobby Flay just a horribly cruel program?" One Reddit user wrote, while another said they enjoyed rooting against Flay. "Flay comes off as incredibly cocky and arrogant." Another Redditor complained, "These people are told that Food Network is doing a segment on them. And then when they bring Flay in, like 80% of them seem disappointed that they are suddenly on 'Throwdown' instead of having their own little Food Network segment."

"It's like promising a local swim champ that CNN wants to feature him for being such an inspiration with a new technique," wrote one IMDb reviewer, "but then, they send Michael Phelps to show the kid that he actually sucks compared to an Olympian."

The late Anthony Bourdain was also an outspoken critic of "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay," though for the opposite reason: he felt it was humiliating for Flay. "The object," he said, "is to allow every web-fingered geek with a backyard grill — or half-mad muffin maker to proclaim, 'I beat Bobby Flay at makin' barbeque!'" Needless to say, many fans were happy to see the show end.

Viewers weren't the only people impressed with Kent Rollins. With his real deal cooking style and his folksy charm, Rollins quickly became a favorite of Food Network itself, as his "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay" appearance proved to be a career launching pad.

In 2012, Rollins participated in the "Chopped" Grill Masters tournament. Competing in the second of four qualifying heats, Rollins wowed the judges with his salsa and refried beans, and even got kudos for his tofu. Rollins won the episode, becoming an official "Chopped" champion, and earned the right to face off against the winners of the other three qualifying rounds for a chance at $50,000. Unfortunately, he came up just short in the finale, finishing as the runner-up in a decision that left judge Amanda Freitag in tears.

Though Rollins wasn't quite Freitag's favorite Chopped contestant of all-time, he still returned the following year for a special redemption episode. But that too ended in heartbreak when he cut himself in the final round, leaving his dish disqualified as Rollins again finished second.

Rollins did fare better in 2017 when he won $6,000 as the champion of a cowboy-themed episode of Alton Brown's "Cutthroat Kitchen." And that same year he returned for his second stint as a guest judge on the show "Kids BBQ Championship."

In 2023, a full 13 years after they first met under the blazing sun of the Texas panhandle, Kent Rollins pulled up stakes and headed to New York City for the rematch culinary fans had long dreamed of when he appeared on "Beat Bobby Flay."

It happened in episode 12 of season 34, titled "The 'Win' Beneath Their Wings." Featuring special guest judges Carson Kressley and Kardea Brown, the show seemingly provided Flay with the perfect chance for revenge against Rollins.

However, there was one major obstacle: chef Rashad Jones. That's because the format of "Beat Bobby Flay" dictates that two potential challengers face off in the first round, with only the winner getting to challenge Bobby Flay to a head-to-head showdown.

While most viewers were no doubt looking forward to a Rollins-Flay rematch, Jones had other ideas. In the show's opening round, Jones and Rollins were tasked by Flay to make their best dish featuring top sirloin cap, which seemed to play into Rollins' hands. However, the judges felt Rollins sliced his meat too thick, and he was eliminated without even having the chance to face off with Flay again.

Not that Flay got off any easier. Jones challenged Flay to make the best barbecue chicken wings, and once again, the judges felt Jones had made the best dish — meaning that he, and not Rollins, pulled off the ultimate trick and beat Bobby Flay that day.

Following his appearances on the Food Network, Rollins landed a book deal. The result was "A Taste of Cowboy," which was released in 2015 and was cited by Amazon as one of its "100 books for a lifetime of eating & drinking."

Speaking to Suzy Chase on her "Cookery By the Book" podcast, Rollins said that his favorite recipe is bread pudding in whiskey cream sauce, though he no longer eats it himself for health reasons. He also talked about how incredibly hot it was during his appearance on "Throwdown! With Bobby Flay." "He said, 'A man would have a be a fool to do what you do in this kind of weather.' I said, 'No sir, it's job security, Bobby. Nobody else wants to.'"

Rollins has since gone on to pen two more cookbooks: "Comfort Food The Cowboy Way" and "Faith, Family & The Feast." And he's also spread his wings by participating in cooking competitions outside of Food Network, appearing on two episodes of the short-lived NBC series "Food Fighters" in 2014, and as a contestant on the Netflix series "Barbecue Showdown" in 2024.

Rollins was even featured on "CBS Sunday Morning" in 2015, where he revealed that he prefers to be called a cook rather than a chef. "Chefs are people that have had proper training at school. It sorta goes against my grain. A chef creates fancy food. Can't get full-on fancy. We create food you can eat."

Prior to appearing on "Throwdown! with Bobby Flay," Kent Rollins had only dipped his toes into the world of YouTube, uploading just two videos. But after his roller coaster rise to fame, Rollins began posting regular content. The result? He's become one of the most unlikely superstars on YouTube, racking up over 3.3 million followers.

Rollins revealed to Jonathan Haralson on the "Your Ag Empire" podcast that after enjoying his time appearing on Food Network, his wife Shannon decided it was time to take YouTube seriously. "When I got back from one of them deals one time, Shannon said, 'we're fittin' to do a lot of cooking videos.' I said, 'suits me!'" He also said that he immediately recognized that for content creators, consistency is the key to growth. "I said, if we're going to do it ... it needs to be sort of like a diary. It has to be consistent every week."

Rollins also credited Shannon for the production quality of their videos, as she both films and edits most of the content on his channel. "I've worked for a lot of producers, a lot of directors. I've been in a lot of TV. But she's the best one I've ever worked with."

Considering both his massive online following and his success in mainstream media, you might find it surprising that Rollins has never had his own cooking show. What's more surprising, though, is the reason why: because he turned down every opportunity.

Rollins told Jonathan Haralson on the "Your Ag Empire" podcast that over the years, he had been approached many times by television producers, but every time, he shot them down. "We would get producers that would call and say, 'Hey, I got the perfect show for you," Rollins said. "I said, 'no you don't.' I said, 'y'all want reality, we want real ... we got the perfect show right here where we're at.'"

But that finally changed with the debut of his first TV series, "Cast Iron Cowboy," in September 2025 on the Outdoor Channel. The show follows Rollins and his wife Shannon as they travel around to different ranches, spotlighting the cooking and the stories of America's heartland. "We didn't want the show to be about us," Rollins said on the Cowboy Cartel podcast. "We wanted to showcase ranches across the United States. How they raise beef, their family heritage, and maybe cook a recipe that's been in their family for a long time."

"We've met some of the great people, seen some of the greatest places you'll ever see", he added. "And it's our way of giving back."