10 Wrestlers With Better Signatures Than Finishers
4. MJF
The finisher:
There is time yet to establish MJF's Fujiwara armbar as an effective, inescapable submission finish. The execution is great, in that it looks incredibly painful and is well applied, but part of the issue is that the MJF character boasts more about that which he doesn't do than that which he does. He's an economic defensive wrestler too smart to inflict damage to his own body more than he is a technical wizard capable of inflicting his own. There's a dissonance to his finish that catches the audience unawares, to the point of anticlimax, not helped by his comedic selling spots and terrific, in-character motive to level up to the modern style just because he can. MJF is a fabulous talent but he doesn't use a targeted and consistent submission strategy that drives the drama of the finish.
The better signature:
His pendulum piledriver is far better and works perfectly within the confines of his character. At his rotten core, MJF isn't just a nasty, aloof heel: he's a sociopathic piece of sh*t, and the gruesome, surface reckless impact of his old finish is in perfect service of it.