Roderick Strong and his hand-chosen tag team partner, WWE U.K. Champion Pete Dunne, battle the American-British alliance of Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch. Video courtesy of the award-winning WWE Network.

After days of speculation over whom Roderick Strong would choose to be his tag team partner in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, The Messiah of the Backbreaker came through with a bold choice that no one could have predicted: WWE U.K. Champion Pete Dunne.

That Strong hand-selected the notoriously solitary BruiserWeight might come as a surprise, but it proved to be a winning strategy, as the pair upended Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch in the final First-Round Match of the Dusty Classic.

Strong & Dunne endured Lorcan & Burch’s incredibly hard-hitting attack and fired back in kind. The makeshift duo even demonstrated sharp double-team maneuvers, such as when Dunne launched Burch into a pendulum backbreaker by Strong. The Messiah of the Backbreaker immediately followed up with End of Heartache for the win, eliminating Lorcan & Burch from tournament competition.

If Strong & Dunne’s first match as a unit is any indication of what’s to come, their opponents in the Semifinals, SAnitY, have their work cut out for them.