With the Quad City Silverbacks and New York Pitbulls advancing to next month's finals after winning their semifinal matches on Thursday, here are some of my thoughts on what took place at the Meadowlands.

1) Ben Rothwell is a heavyweight star in the making

Even with IFL's rigorous fight schedule, Ben Rothwell has dominated his competition, winning six of seven of his IFL fights by stoppage, including two by submission.  Rothwell is at his most impressive standing up, but he has an underrated ground game.  On Thursday, Rothwell took 13 seconds to finish off Krzysztof Soszynski.  It was vintage Rothwell.  The question is, how long can IFL hold on to Rothwell before promotions such as UFC and EliteXC dangle money and fame in his face?  And, will we ever get to see a fight between Rothwell and fellow Miletich stable mate Tim Sylvia?

2) Submission of the night

Submission of the night is easily earned by Dan Miller.  Miller defeated Dave Phillips with a guillotine choke that left Phillips unconscious standing up.  When the ref stopped the match and pulled Miller off Phillips, Phillips' body collapsed to the mat.

3) The finals will feature a marquee matchup of two of IFL's model teams

New York and Quad City are teams based around two very strong MMA camps.  New York's squad is centered around coach Renzo Gracie's jiu-jitsu academy in New York City, while Quad City's squad is based on coach Pat Miletich's Bettendorf, Iowa camp.  Is it any wonder that two teams with such strong roots and large academies full of superior MMA athletes are in the finals?  I don't believe it's any coincidence.  As IFL grows, these two teams -- along with a couple of other teams including Portland Wolfpack -- will serve as templates for future successful teams.

And, there was no doubt who the home team was at the Meadowlands -- fans were most energized for the Pitbulls' matchup against the Tokyo Sabres.

4) The IFL's team-based model has a lot of potential with need for a couple of tweaks

I don't know how the promotion can get around this, but after both Quad City and New York went up 3-0 in their respective best-of-five matches, fans lost interest in the remaining two matches.  In fact, most fans had left the arena by the time the final New York-Tokyo match was over.

Hopefully, the introduction of the individual grand prix tournament will add to fan interest in not only the teams in the league but also the individual fighters as well.

IFL has definitely created a niche market by taking what was commonly believed to be an individual sport and making it a team sport.  As I've said before, they very well could serve as the model for MMA competition between countries in a future Olympic games.

5) What's brewing in the Tokyo Sabres team?

There was definitely some tension at the post-fight press conference when the Tokyo Sabres took the podium.  From what I could tell, it appears there is some internal dissent within the team.  I will be interested to hear what -- if any -- developments come out of that camp in the next few months.