Embodiments of the present invention provide a user equipment pairing processing method, a network side device, and a user equipment. The method includes: acquiring, by a network side device, pairing request information of a beneficial user equipment and a candidate support user equipment that are to be paired; and implementing, by the network side device, pairing of the beneficial user equipment and the candidate support user equipment according to the pairing request information, and sending a pairing success message to the beneficial user equipment and the candidate support user equipment. In the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present invention, user pairing in cooperative communication is implemented.