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"I'm 6'5", 220 [pounds], and there's TWO of me."
Tyler Winklevoss, The Social Network

Twins are often thought of as being natural Tag Team partners. They not only function as a team better than non-twin pairings, they also have one trick few other professional wrestlers (save masked ones) can match — they can easily swap places in a match behind the ref's back, allowing the fresh brother to take the injured one's place. Needless to say, such a flagrant violation of the rules is a classic heel tactic.

Compare and contrast Twin Switch, where twins trade places or lives. See also Superior Twin Teamwork for when the twin team is shown to be far better than all other competitors (or when the twins are working separately) because of their superior coordination. Nothing to do with the Twin Threesome Fantasy.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Bakuten Shoot Beyblade:
    • V-Force: King and Queen are a pair of siblings who preferably like to gang up on their opponents and sabotage them by actively destroying their Beyblades and steal parts from them.
    • G-Revolution: F-Sangre only consists of the siblings Julia and Raul, who excel in double matches and show their Superior Twin Teamwork over other teams. Unlike King and Queen, F-Sangre struggle in normal, single matches. Mostly Raul; Julia herself is quite competent in single matches. Eventually, Raul Took a Level in Badass, so that he wouldn't end up as The Load.
  • The Tachibana twins from Captain Tsubasa. This is ironically often their downfall, as their crazy combination moves often stress and damage their bodies, thus they end up injured a lot.
  • Dragon Ball: #17 and #18 play this trope straight in Future Trunks's and Cell's timelines. They avert this trope in the main timeline, where they consider this trope in one-on-one battles as unfair. However, later in Dragon Ball Super, the main timeline versions of the twins finally team up as a tag-team because of the battle royale format of the Tournament of Power.
  • The Liese twins from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's. The video game adaptation even treated them as a singular character who swap out for different moves.
  • The Meikyu Brothers from Yu-Gi-Oh!. They use decks that support each other and they only duel together.
  • Lua and Luca from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds often duel together. In fact, Luca has only one on-screen duel where she duels alone.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V:
    • The Tyler Sisters duel in a team when they are facing two opponents. They also use the same archetype to support each other.
    • Kaito uses a Cipher deck, which focuses on controlling multiple monsters with the same names. He has several cards that can turn the names of his own monsters or his opponent's monster into another card that is already on the field and he uses Spell and Trap Cards that either support cards with the same name or opposes monsters with the same name. He also runs at least two copies of his ace monster. In the anime, when cards change names, they take the form of the card whose name they have theirs changed to. For example, if Kaito uses an effect to change a monster's name to the name of his ace monster, that monster will take the form of his ace monster.
  • The A. Phex Brothers from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Jo Jolion.

    Comics 
  • Northstar and Aurora in the X-Men franchise. While they are fraternal twins (brother and sister), they can use light based attacks when they touch each other.
  • Wonder Woman (1942): The Heyday sisters are tag team triplets, it's rare to see more than two of them fighting side by side and they practice passing as each other allowing them to switch out without opponents realizing if they time it right. This means one can take a rest or get other Holliday Girls for help while the other two are busy.
  • Dark Horse's Comics' Greatest World has a superpower version where every so often one twin literally takes over for the other as Rebel (powers and costume) with the touch of a hand.

    Fan Works 
  • Vow of Nudity: Ukhetsep and Rhataq are barbarian khenranote  twins who spend the whole story kicking ass together.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In The Prestige, the main character goes to great lengths, so far as violating the laws of physics, replicating and one-upping a magic trick performed by a man who was secretly twins.
  • In Jane Doe The Ties That Bind the main suspect appears to have a solid alibi, being on camera somewhere, but later on we find out there is a twin brother, and even a third identical brother involved.

    Literature 

  • Cobalt Blue: Josh and Winnie (Cobalt-Purple and Cobalt-White) are twins and are the only siblings who regularly fight crime side-by-side with their Flying Brick powers.
  • In the Harry Potter novels, Fred and George Weasley act as tag team twins on the Quidditch field as beaters, redirecting heavy, self-propelled balls towards the opposing team.

    Live Action TV 
  • Jake and the Fatman: In "Blues in the Night", a pair of twin jewel thieves proves to be a challenge for McCabe as he unknowingly provides an alibi for one sister while the other commits a murder.
  • In an episode of NCIS, the team figures out how a serial murderer committed their crime with an alibi to back them up.
  • The Silk Stalkings episode Pas de Deux sees the lead cops investigate the murder of a male ballet dancer in which the initial suspects are twin ballerinas, one being the victim's wife and the other his mistress.
  • On Xena: Warrior Princess a wrestling show solves the problem of the twin switch by making twin teams compete in tornado matches instead of tag matches.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • In the late 1960s through the 1970s there were "The Clones" Mike Kelly and Pat Kelly. The two men were not even related, they just coincidentally happened to look almost identical and decided to take advantage of the fact by playing tricks on referees.
  • This was played with by the Texas Outlaws, as both Dick Murdock and Dusty Rhodes were blond but otherwise looked nothing alike. During a match in The Sheik's Detroit territory during 1970 Rhodes made an illegal cover while the much skinnier and bleeding Murdoch was out of it and then immediately placed Murdoch back on top while the other face was arguing with the referee about the illegal switch.
  • The Batten twins, Brad and Bart in 1980s Central States promotion and WWC. They were actually baby faces most of their career and so the twin switch was mainly Played for Laughs but didn't take off in WWC until they turned and then started employing this trope straight.
  • The Harris Brothers, in their various guises (The Blu Brothers, Disciples of Apocalypse, et al.), loved to do this.
  • The Power Twins Dave and Larry, whose work in Herb Abrams' UWF got us two more Power Twins in Ultimate Pro Wrestling. The UPW twins were not wrestlers however but pom pom girls who initially served the Ballard Brothers.
  • As did the Shane Twins (a.k.a. The Gymini, or infamously in TNA, The Johnsons [don't ask]).
  • The masked tag team The Killer Bees made this such an integral part of their act that, when they had a Heel–Face Turn and took off their masks, they still kept doing this trick, as the Bee on the outside would quickly put his mask on and take his partner's place. This is kind of ridiculous if you think about it; we all know pro wrestling referees aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, but you'd think a ref would notice that the guy suddenly has a mask on when "he" didn't before...
    • It made perfect sense - inasmuch as anything does in wrestling - because BOTH guys would put on their masks, so the ref had no idea who the one being beaten on seconds earlier was. However, for whatever reason, when Koko B. Ware tried the trick while teaming with the Bees, the ref caught on. Don't know how that could have happened....
  • Billy and Benny McCrary were Tag Team Twins, as well as the world's heaviest twins.
  • The Haas Brothers Charlie and Russ could pull this off. Unfortunately Russ died before making it to the WWE.
  • Subverted: The Briscoe Brothers are neither Briscoes (the legal name is Pugh) nor twins (Jay was born a year and a week before Mark), but they are real brothers. They pulled the twin-switch a few times earlier in their careers, though - however, since then, they have gotten extensive tattoos that make it easier to tell one from the other (with Mark Briscoe's missing front teeth giving away the difference pretty handily). After all, it's hard to mistake Jay for Mark when he has "Jay" tattooed on his arm...
  • The Basham Brothers are a famed practitioner of the Tag Team Twin trick as well, despite the fact that they're not even related (just have similar builds and bald heads). This was actually part of an angle in Ohio Valley Wrestling, where Doug Basham deliberately altered his appearance to make himself look more like "Damaja" as part of an evil plan to make him his "brother" on Smackdown.
  • Mercilessly parodied by The Dudley Boys when they were on WWE SmackDown!, as Corrupt Corporate Executive Paul Heyman claimed, at length, that he couldn't tell them apart at all, and thus they got away with switching at will. For the record, one of them is white and the other is black.
    • They once managed to do it in TNA. The switch itself was done while the referee was temporary blinded, but you'd think that if he could see well enough to count the pin, he'd also be able to see that it was the wrong wrestler doing the pinning.
  • PGWA had the Oklahoma Angels, whom they didn't even bother calling by individual names. (For the record, they were Kylie and Kyla Clark.)
  • The Bella Twins often employed this trope early in their tenure, when Brie was a singles wrestler and Nikki was yet to be revealed. They eventually got exposed by Victoria and Natalya, and then began wrestling as a tag team, still doing the switch on occasion, even after returning in 2013, after Nikki had gotten breast implants which Brie was missing, making them more easy to tell apart. Jerry Lawler kept pointing this out on commentary.
  • Subverted by The Usos. Despite being (fraternal) twins, pointing out the fact most people couldn't even tell them apart and being Heels, they refused to fall back on this trick. Then they tried playing it straight after a losing streak on WWE Superstars. An inadvertent version of this ended up biting them in the ass; during a match with The Wyatt Family, during a chaotic melee one of the Usos ended up taking a hard shot and getting pinned. The problem is that it was the wrong Uso; the ref couldn't tell that the one who got pinned wasn't the legal man because they looked so much alike.
  • The Body Donnas (Skip [Chris Candido] and Zip [Tom Prichard]) (who, like the Bashams, weren't really related but used similar hairstyles, builds and identical costumes to play twins) did this on a regular basis during their WWE (then WWF) run, but had it backfire when one of the brothers was booked in a singles match against Ahmed Johnson. Despite the twins switching behind the ref's back, Johnson simply picked up where he left off and continued to beat down whichever twin was in the ring. Then the ref caught them trying to swap again and chased the legal twin out; he turned back just in time for Johnson to hit his finisher and get a three-count on the "wrong" man.
  • Inverted when face team The Headbangers, while not identical (or in any other way related), looked similar enough to use this trick to steal a win from heels Marc Mero and Goldust.
  • The Quebecers tried this once. The obviously fatter Pierre was quickly called out on it by the referee, despite scrunching himself down as small as possible to look more like Jacques.
  • The Phoenix Twins, Tweek and Dash, champions of All American Wrestling and All American Pro Wrestling.
  • OVW has the Blossom Twins, who used this trick to defeat the Glamazon's Suspiciously Similar Substitute Epiphany, in their debut match. There are also the fairly successful Baronis Brothers, though outside of OVW they are better known as the Tate Twins, who are mostly used as jobbers by the NWA promotions and fed to War Machine in Ring of Honor.
  • The Brahman Brothers (a.k.a The Sato Twins) are the kings of this trope in Japan. Back in Toryumon X, they were considered one wrestler and were allowed to compete in matches as the same person, as the referee couldn't tell them apart and was forced to permit it.
  • This was about all The Boys had going for them when Silas Young forced them into matches at Ring of Honor shows in an effort to make "men" of them. However, they showed a lot more(read:some) competence after Dalton Castle defeated Young at Final Battle and regained their services. This trope as was downplayed when they became World Six Man Tag Team Champs with Castle, who they'll never be mistaken for.
  • This worked against La Revolución after their Heel–Face Turn in WWC. During their title defenses against Doom Patrol the referee would question the legitimacy of even their perfectly legal tags if he was even slightly distracted.
  • The Renegade Twins (Robyn and Charlette) had this gimmick on the indies and in AEW. They of course pulled a Twin Switch fairly regularly. This has declined as their respective characters have evolved, and flat-out failed to work at all in the revived Ring of Honor when both the referee and Willow Nightingale were able to easily recognize that a switch had been attempted.

    Video Games 
  • Ingo and Emmet, the Subway Bosses from Pokémon Black and White, will battle the player (paired with another Trainer) together in a Multi battle after a 20 win streak on the Multi Train (or 48 win streak if you're doing the Super Multi Train).
  • Aegina and Luciana from Yggdra Union use similar tactics on a larger scale, retreating when one is about to be beaten and letting the other attack shortly afterwards - and until they're both on the same battlefield, the game displays both of their names as Aegina. However, there's enough differentiation between them that a sharp-eyed player can tell them apart.
  • Kirara and Sarara fight as a team in the Story mode of Magical Battle Arena, and even their opponents will comment that their being twins made them formidable opponents after the battle.
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny, the Liese Twins play like this. They are selected as one character in the game, and they fight by switching in and out to execute their various moves.
  • Eliza and Isabella in Custom Robo on the Gamecube. First hinted at when Eliza seems to have somehow got amnesia and forgotten all about the promise she made to Evil, actually revealed near the very end of the game. However, this can be spotted in paying attention to the parts they use.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has two battles like this in Dodongo's Cavern. Both times, Link is pitted against two Lizalfos, who attack him one at a time and switch places after the current fighter takes a certain amount of damage.

    Visual Novels 

    Webcomics 
  • Used against the York Sisters in Rival Angels. Damage Inc. beat up one of the twins outside the ring, and then roll her in while the referee's distracted for an easy pin.

    Real Life 
  • Drew and Jonathan Scott, better known as the Property Brothers. They do avert this trope to an extent, since the two have different roles in the series (Drew as a real estate agent, Jonathan as a contractor).
  • Another HGTV real estate series, Unsellable Houses, features Lyndsay Lamb and Leslie Davis, twin sisters who own a real estate agency and take on major renovations (with a contractor doing the actual reno) as part of their business. However, the pair are much easier to tell apart than the Scotts, and they also have different roles in their business (Lyndsay as the designer, Leslie as the financial brain).
  • Twins have played collegiate and professional sports as teammates. While sometimes they differ in abilities, many times their skill sets are sufficiently similar that they can and are used interchangeably.
    • Examples include Henrik and Daniel Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks, Markieff and Marcus Morris of the Kansas Jayhawks in college and the Phoenix Suns in the NBA, David and Travis Wear of the UCLA Bruins, and Shaquill and Shaquem Griffin of the UCF Knights college football team and later the Seattle Seahawks.
    • Robert and Ross Hume, distances runners for the University of Michigan in 1944 and 1945, became famous as the "dead-heat twins" for finishing their races hand-in-hand in an intentional effort to tie. In 1946, the NCAA made a new rule explicitly disallowing ties in track and field events.
    • Among the first college athletes to take advantage of a July 2021 NCAA rules change that allowed them to accept endorsement income were Haley and Hanna Cavinder, fraternal twin (though virtual lookalike) basketball players who started out at Fresno State but took their talents to South Beach (i.e., Miami) after the 2021–22 season. During COVID-19 lockdowns, the twins started posting dance videos to Hanna's TikTok account. By the time the NCAA rules changed, they had over 3 million followers on that site. On the very day the new rules took effect, they signed an endorsement deal with Boost Mobile, and added several more in the following weeks. They later inked an endorsement deal with WWE, with the option of entering WWE developmental after they complete their college careers. And then they got a deal with a sports clothing startup that gave them a 25% equity stake and one of three seats on the board of directors. That was only the start of their business ventures; by November 2022, they had over 40 endorsement deals, and they were preparing to launch a podcast. After the 2022–23 season, the twins initially decided not to return for a final year of college basketball,note  and made non-wrestling appearances in WWE while contemplating entering the promotion's training center. However, Haley changed her plans, announcing later in 2023 that she would return to basketball for one final college season in 2024–25 at TCU. Hanna remains retired from basketball.
  • The Australian reality TV series Bondi Vet, in its second incarnation as Bondi Vet: Coast to Coast, features (among other veterinarians) Drs. Alison and Audrey Shen, identical twins who practice together in a mobile veterinary service.


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