(1)Mario vs. Bowser vs (1)Pokemon Trainer Red vs. Pokemon Trainer Blue 2011

[Ulti's Analysis
For an hour, this was the match of the contest. These two were more or less tied, and you could make an argument the trainers had some real momentum during those first 60 minutes.

Unfortunately, the trainers have joke trends and IT'S FREAKING MARIO. From hour 1 through hour 24, Mario's lead increased by 5800 votes and he more than proved he was worthy of the final. An upset would have been cool of course, but you can't really say Mario and Bowser didn't deserve the make the final of a rivalry contest. Those two are iconic, they've been around forever and they got the most nominations for a reason. They may have even had the most brackets given how much higher Mario's prediction percentage to make the final was compared to Link's, but we'll never really know.

The trainers would get one last chance to prove that they were the stars of this contest, though.