i've read about ed being slimy, and i'm not here to say anything about "pepper x" specifically.
instead, i am having one of those stream-of-consciousness moments where i've just thought, strictly speaking, isn't "the hottest pepper in the world" the one single pod that registers the highest SHU or whatever metric?
i understand it's not a useful statistic to anyone, since it's just measuring one pepper, and the heat level of that general breed/variety is obviously going to vary by several 100k SHU from plant to plant, not to mention the difference when you growyourown at home in whatever part of the world you live, versus the result of the record-holder's "competition" plants that were given all of the ideal conditions and grown in mass quantities to find that one unicorn hotter than all the others.
but the fact is that if there exists a single pepper pod somewhere that measures 3.5M (whose average specimen of that variety is 2.2-2.4M), then that one "hottest pepper" is the hottest pepper, and is ipso facto spicier than a pepper ringing in at 3.1M from a plant variety whose average is 2.5-2.7M, despite that a random pod from the latter is more likely to be the spicier. think about environment temperature; the lowest temperature recorded, doesn't have to have occurred in the "statistically coldest place to live".
"(overall) hottest pepper variety" could/should be a separate (and equally or even more meaningful) distinction that would take averages into account and give you the best chance at achieving something hotter than anyone eating it has ever had (since you guys never personally tasted that one particular fluke pepper that earned the world record), but the "world's hottest pepper" is and has to be the pepper (that was measured) that is hotter than any other that was ever measured.
except once you realize, there may have existed, at some time, even a hotter pepper, it just wasn't measured...