I've been thinking about this, and honestly I feel like you may be on to something. I think the "rule of three" could definately come into play here. It could definately tie back to the K. Rool trailer which is, interestingly enough, called "The Rivals". The only main thing I would change is include Mario and Sonic in there (which with Crash also makes three
). And I definately think Sonic should be the one masquerading as Crash. Not only are they similar looking mammalian platform characters, but Crash's game used to be called "Sonic's ass" during development. Maybe they might even reference that by having Sonic-Crash face away from the camera before revealing himself? Lol
There's probably many different ways you could do this sort of trailer, but Mario has to be there because he connects everyone together (DK was also Mario's rival at one point). I think this could very well be what we see.