Frankly, when we started the RandBall/Pavano Mustache Contest a few weeks back, we weren't really sure what to expect. But here's what we got: more pictures of mustaches than we expected. And that's never a bad thing. So now, we're at the point where it's time to judge these things. And, as luck would have it, the inspirational man himself (Carl Anthony Liptickler Pavano) is pitching tonight.

In the interest of democracy, we will put the eight finalists to commenter vote. The first batch will be on this post; the second (final) batch will follow. There are four entries per batch. You may vote for yourself. Please rank them in the comments. The winner from each batch will move on to a showdown Stache-off Friday, and that winner will get a prize assortment from the swag bin. Here we go:

A reader named Ashley sends in a photo of her 10-month-old daughter. Is that thing real? Not sure. Cute kid, though.

Next up is Rocket, who doesn't want his full face revealed for obvious reasons. But he has maintained througout the contest that he was going to win it going away. He's even declared what kind of prize he wants for winning. He's kind of the bad boy of the 'stache contest. This photo, incidentally, was not taken off an "America's Most Wanted" poster. We do know for a fact that he started with a clean-shaven face, so this really is just a few weeks worth of work.

And now Clayton, who was entered by friend Aaron. He is the hot dog derby champ. Is he the Pavstache champ?

And the last of the batch: Steve from Sioux Falls, S.D. Steve tried to text his picture to our office phone. That didn't work so well. But we got it eventually, and here is his fairly impressive entry:

Again, your votes in the comments, ranked 1-4. We'll drop the next batch in a couple of hours.