Matched Pair

Call me picky, but I like my Tag Team wrestlers to match.  I prefer when the two partners are about the same size with similar hair styles and body types, and most importantly, wearing identical gear.  I’m not sure why, maybe I just like things organized, but the more the Tag Team partners look and dress alike, the more I enjoy watching their matches.

Whether it’s the Heel team or the Face team, whether they’re in tights or trunks or singlets, taking the trouble to put on perfectly matching outfits is highly appreciated by this wrestling fan.  It’s like when you get to work and realize that your socks don’t match, you feel ridiculous and out of your groove all day.  So much better to take an extra minute to make sure they match!

Even as a youngster watching wrestling back in the good old days, I always believed a Tag Team should be taken more seriously, should be respected and feared, if they wore identical outfits.  They were organized and fearsome, like soldiers. And show me a masked Tag Team, exactly alike in the colors and styles of their masks and outfits, two of a kind, perfectly indistinguishable, and I’d always be very excited to watch them working in tandem.  Wearing the masks made them seem inhuman and therefore merciless, like killer robots.

These teams always had interesting and intimidating names as well: The Grapplers, The Assassins, The Gladiators, The Mysterious Medics.  Am I the only one who was intrigued and excited by these kinky brawlers who looked like mirror images?

Identical twin Tag Teams — the Batton Twins, the Shane Twins, the Logan Brothers — really work for me too.  It’s like they have special powers, a telepathic link, because they’re so freakishly similar.  And when they move in tandem, applying identical holds or drop-kicks at the same time, it can be downright creepy and very fun to watch.  You think you’re seeing double.

I remember as a youngster hearing about identical twins who could feel each other’s pain.  In my twisted little mind, I always thought that would make for a very compelling Tag Team match — the twin in the ring beaten and broken with all manner of painful slams and put in cruel contortions, while the twin outside the ring cringes and moans uncontrollably, collapsing in agony from the relentless abuse his twin was suffering in the ring.  The heel team would watch the painful reactions of the twin outside the ring as they tortured his brother in the ring.  Maybe this odd fantasy has something to do with my love for Tag Team wrestlers who match.

If you have any theories on why a matched pair of wrestlers who look identical is so much more satisfying and entertaining than two singles, send them to me, I’d love to hear why this is.