"Best $2k I Ever Spent!" Esquire's Sexiest Woman Alive Final Four Update: The Joke's On Us

March is over, and that means we're almost done with the biggest, most exciting tournament of the year, a national spectacle that pits 64 hungry competitors against each other with everything on the line. And when I say the competitors are hungry, I mean they've literally been starving themselves for most of their adult lives. Welcome to the Final Four of The Financial Times' Sexiest Woman Alive tourna- ahem, sorry, Esquire's Sexiest Woman Alive Madness tournament.

Now, we've been following this landmark cultural event since the beginning of the tourney, but even on-record Esquire superfans like us find ourselves learning a thing or two as it goes along. Like, did you know that none of the women who competed in these hallowed brackets last year were allowed to participate this year? So, when you think about it, this group is actually competing for the prize of "65th Sexiest Woman Alive"! Although this makes it a little easier to explain some of the selections and omissions, it might also make the more cynical among us question the purpose of the whole exercise. Is 2010 winner Minka Kelly no longer sexy, just because she's probably going to marry New York Yankee Derek Jeter? The answer is yes.

So now we come to the Final Four, women plucked from each of the only four professional fields that Esquire seems to think an attractive woman might possibly exist in. Since I've heard a rumor that there's a somewhat similar "basketball" tournament happening at about this same time, I thought it might be a fun little exercise to compare their Final Four teams to these ones. Let's see if it works!

(10) Megan Fox [(8) Butler] vs (10) Katrina Bowden [(11) Virginia Commonwealth University]

In that little old basketball tournament around the way, this is considered something of a Cinderella matchup, with neither Butler nor VCU expected to reach these heights. Both teams had to dispatch a bevy of larger, more talented teams to reach the Final Four, and therefore it's only appropriate that Megan (who, it should be noted, would have had a much higher ranking in previous years- thanks, Jonah Hex!!!) defeated Olivia Wilde and 2012 Kids Choice Awards host Anne Hathaway, while Katrina defeated my beloved Padma, Kim Kardashian, and the girls from something called Glee.

In the end, look for a spirited battle between two scrappy underdogs that will come down to this: who really wants to win, and who's just happy to be here? Since Butler made the championship game last year only to lose to Duke (the Katherine Heigl of schools), you'd have to imagine they're hungry for more. In other words, it's been a nice, unexpected run for Katrina, but I'm afraid it ends here. How will she ever show her face again?

Prediction: Butler/Megan Fox

(1) Brooklyn Decker [(3) UConn] vs (4) Erin Andrews [(4) Kentucky]

Confession time! I don't really know who Brooklyn Decker is, or where I'm supposed to know her from. On immediate examination, she seems blond, and as the photo shows, she's clearly confident enough in her looks to wear that Halloween costume as an everyday dress. So I guess kudos on that. And speaking of things one might be embarrassed to be seen in, she's in the new Adam Sandler movie. So, for the sake of our comparison, we're going to spin this to say that she is absolutely fearless, just like the University of Connecticut Huskies, who have won nine games in tournament play in the last 19 days and are looking like world-beaters.

As for Erin Andrews, who recently had to endure the court case of the man who illegally set up hidden cameras to videotape her changing in a hotel room, I'm sure being in a men's magazine's "Sexiest Woman" contest for a bunch of internet trolls is a real thrill.

Prediction: Brooklyn Decker/ UConn

So that gives us a Final of Butler vs UConn, and/or Megan Fox vs Brooklyn Decker. Since I've literally run out of every ounce of interest in this (at least as far as the Esquire tournament goes), I'm picking Brooklyn Decker/UConn to win it all. Huzzah!

Go HERE for our Esquire "Sexiest Woman Alive Madness, Round I" assessment and predictions.

Go HERE for our Esquire "Sexiest Woman Alive Madness, Round II" assessment and predictions.

[photos via]