And Then There Were Four: A Look at Bellator's Season Two Finals

It started with 32 hungry individuals looking for a shot.

Eight middleweights gunning for Hector Lombard.

Eight lightweights gunning for Eddie Alvarez.

Eight featherweights gunning for Joe Soto.

Eight welterweights gunning for Lyman Good.

With time and a ruthless struggle, 16 fell while 16 moved forward.

Along with these 16 winners, the eliminated also had a chance to see three of the four established kings of the Bellator arena.

Alvarez locked in a rear naked choke that caused Josh Neer to face-plant onto the floor in round two.

"Shango" Lombard set a new Bellator record for the promotion's fastest knockout when he knocked Jay Silva out in six seconds.

Soto gave Diego Savaira such a brutal first round in their super fight that the fight actually was stopped at the end of round one due to the cut on Savaira's forehead.

Only Good had yet to be seen in a non-title super fight, but fans will see him, as well as Alvarez, Lombard, and Soto, in action during the third season of Bellator Fighting Championships.

That brings us to the eight out of 16 men who will close out this season of Bellator in their respective final-round fights.

In the featherweight division, Joe Warren faces Patricio "Pitbull" Freire for a shot at Joe Soto in Season Three at Bellator XXIII.

Toby Imada will try to earn himself a rematch with Eddie Alvarez in Season Three, but he must face Pat Curran at Bellator XXI and defeat him convincingly in order to get a rematch of last season's lightweight final with Alvarez.

Lyman "Cyborg" Good has not been seen since beating Omar De La Cruz in last season's welterweight final by a first round TKO, but he'll be staying wide awake at Bellator XXII as 2008 Olympian Ben "Funky" Askren faces Dan "The Handler" Hornbuckle, who has only gone to the judges once in his career but has also racked up 10 wins by knockout and 10 wins by submission.

Finally, Bryan Baker faces Alexander Shlemenko in the middleweight final to decide who will face Hector Lombard in his first Bellator Middleweight title fight in a fight that will also be featured at Bellator XXIII.

So, by looking at the records of each fighter involved and the manner in which some fights ended, it'd be easy to see what each Bellator final comes down to. Below is the way in which I break down the fights, but keep in mind one thing:

I'm not picking any winners. This is mixed martial arts. Every fight is anyone's game.

So with that, let's have a look at the fights.

Baker vs. Shlemenko

Bryan Baker vs. Alexander Shlemenko comes down to which fighter can score the knockout first. Both men tend to grind out decisions less than they end a fight by TKO or KO, although they do grind out decisions more than they try to submit.

Submission could be a way for one fighter to beat the other in a shocking upset, but unless we see Baker utilize some of his judo against Shlemenko, this fight could end up being yet another stand-up battle.

Askren vs. Hornbuckle

Ben Askren's gotten where he's at now by beating Ryan Thomas twice. The official decision on the first fight was a technical submission, as Thomas didn't answer the ref or tap, but Thomas insisted that he didn't tap.

The unfortunate circumstances that occurred in Europe forced Jim Wallhead out of the Bellator welterweight running, opening a door for Thomas' re-entry.

Thomas capitalized on the opportunity, only to be outscored by Ben Askren in their rematch.

Dan Hornbuckle, on the other hand, submitted Tyler Stinson by Triangle Choke and Steve Carl by Kimura—both at about two minutes in the first round—in order to secure his spot in the finals.

Anyone who loves the "Jiu-Jitsu Vs. Wrestling" type of fights should not sleep on this fight. What it may lack on the feet it could make up for on the ground, since both men's strengths lie in that vicinity.

"Lay-and-pray" is not something I condone, but using take-downs to wear out Hornbuckle's back and deter his jiu-jitsu long enough for Askren to fight his way into a mount or submission attempt is.

Hornbuckle will have to make Askren struggle to even get a takedown in order to neutralize the game of the 2008 Olympic wrestler.

Experience could also be a factor in this fight. The difference between Askren's record and Hornbuckle's record is 18 fights.

Askren is coming into the fight as the more inexperienced fighter, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he'll have a huge disadvantage against Hornbuckle as long as he comes in with a game plan to take Hornbuckle out of his element.

"Pitbull" Freire vs. Warren

Joe Warren is a wrestler, both Greco-Roman and Freestyle, who fought the first three fights of his career in DREAM before debuting in this season's Bellator featherweight tournament. His two-fight road to the finals was a strong display of his wrestling ability in what some might consider lackluster performances.

Nonetheless, Warren earned two unanimous decision victories over Eric Marriott and Georgi Karakhanyan en route to his date with Black House MMA's Patricio "Pitbull" Freire.

Freire's two fights were a victory by heel hook over William Romero and a unanimous decision win over Wilson Reis.

What happens in this fight depends on if Patricio gets taken down. Again, we have a classic case of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu talent vs. the wrestler. Depending on how active Warren is on the ground, the fight either benefit or harm Freire.

Either way, if Warren doesn't make an attempt to finish the fight, it could be the beginning of the end for him and his hopes of facing Joe Soto.

Toby Imada vs. Pat "Jr." Curran

If you don't know who Pat Curran is, he's the guy who ended Roger Huerta's hopes of being in line for a shot at Eddie Alvarez.

Before Huerta, Pat Curran had defeated Mike Ricci by knocking him out at about three minutes and a second into the first round.

Toby Imada has lost only once in Bellator, and that one loss was in last year's lightweight final against Eddie Alvarez.

Since the new season started, the California-born Filipino had convinced the fans of Bellator that he deserves to earn another crack at Alvarez the only way he knows how: by submitting people.

He made James Krouse and Carey Vanier tap out in the second round en route to his date with Curran.

A well-rounded fighter with skills in boxing and wrestling, as well as a studious learner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu along with his cousin, former WEC featherweight championship contender Jeff Curran, Pat Curran has three knockout wins and three submission wins on his record.

Curran's win over Roger Huerta put his number of decision wins up to five, however, thus giving him the reputation of being a “grinder.”

He's shown good wrestling, especially against Huerta, but if he wants his next fight to be against Alvarez, he needs to rely a little bit on his boxing to stun the freestyle fight game of Imada, and he needs to defend the submission attempts that Imada will no doubt make in order to finish the fight.

Imada's counter to this will have to be stuffing the takedowns of Curran and putting him in a situation where a submission would be an appropriate plan of action.

If Curran should utilize his boxing, then Imada should be sure that his own striking is up to par as well.

For those thinking of sleeping on the next three Bellator events, I hope you all won't.

If you sleep on any of these promising Bellator finals, you might just be missing an exciting conclusion to the second season of tournaments, courtesy of what is arguably the most underrated MMA promotion in the world today.