Best Rivalries in Sport

Leafs/Habs

 

QFT. Although if we're going to look at the overall picture of NCAA football rivalries, the ND/USC rivalry has meant more than any other each year. I think 30 times they've played where one team had a stake in a possible national title. OSU/UM should be up there because of the visceral hatred.

 

Chiefs-Broncos-Raiders

Three of the four teams in the AFC West, often the best division in the NFL, are bitter rivals. Only San Diego escapes this intense inter-division hatred. But they do have a rivalry with the Raiders. So basically everyone hates the Raiders

But if the fact that Oakland gave San Diego a scare isn't an indication that games within this division are almost always hard no matter the quality of the teams, I don't know what is.



-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Title implications are nice, and yeah, ND-SoCal is a pretty good rivalry, but in terms of pure hatred of each other, OSU-UM trumps all in NCAA Football.

Heck, it even expands to the whole states. I know people from Ohio that don't care about sports but still absolutely hate Michigan and vice versa.

 

One of the most exciting NHL rivialries over the past 10 years has been between the Red Wings and Avs. It's lost some of its intensity recently, but I've thouroughly enjoyed watching those two teams go it.

 

Vikings/Packers.

There is so much bad blood, it's an amazing game every time they play.

 

Ohio State and Michigan?

It isn't much of a rivalry when one team keeps beating the other all of the time.

 

MLB: The Yanks vs Red Sox and the Angels vs Oakland A's

NFL: the Chiefs and the Raiders

College football: USC and UCLA

NHL: Anaheim Ducks and LA Kings

NBA: Celtics & Lakers
Bulls & Pistones

 

In pro sports in the US it has to be Yankees/Redsox

This year USC/UCLA lived up to the hype--I mean USC has to be 100 times better, but UCLA showed up hungry and eked out the victory--and they were just playing to be the spoiler, so for college sports, I'd have to vote for Trojans/Bruins.

 

I don't know. Yes I'm biased, but based on pure hatred alone, Auburn/Alabama may be tops. And most at least supposedly unbiased articles that I see around rivalry time all ususally say that OSU/UM is the best rivalry but they do almost always note that Auburn/Alabma is the most bitter. As you say, you easily find OSU fans that despise Michgan and vice versa, but in Alabama, you have to search long and hard to find a fan that does NOT despise their rival. As they say around these parts, you declare you side at birth and your loyalty never waivers...ever.

As an example, this year OSU/UM faced off both undefeated and ranked 1 and 2. Ask most any Auburn or Alabama fan if they'd like to see their rivlary reach that same status and they's say no. Because that would mean that your rival is having a good year and that's never acceptable. I want Alabma to lose every game all the time and Alabama fans feel the same way about Auburn. That game is literally talked about 365 days a year in the state of Alabama.

 

You bring up a good point. If Auburn and Alabama were #1 and #2 in the country at the time of the Iron Bowl, I don't even want to imagine what would happen. Auburn and 'Bama are probably a step up from the hatred in the OSU/UM rivalry. A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that 'Bama and Auburn are in the same state, while OSU and UM are separated by quite a distance (even though they're only one state apart).

I still think that the most important rivalry in terms of scale is ND/USC. The other two just don't have the national implications year in and year out that ND/USC has, even if they don't have the hatred for one another. To each their own, I guess.

Ohio State and Michigan?

It isn't much of a rivalry when one team keeps beating the other all of the time.


And here I thought the record was 57-40-6 in favor of the Team Up North

 

Philly? Theres a team in Philly?

 

I don't think there can possibly be a bigger rivalry in sports than Rangers and Celtic in the Scotland. The hatred that the fans of these two teams toward eachother is unlike anywhere else. Their games make a NY Rangers-NJ Devils game look like children in a kindergarden.

 

The testament to the greatness of the Giants/Dodgers rivalry, is that it continued as both teams came here to California in 1958. A way in which it's better than the Red Sox/Yanks, is that the Giants/Dodgers have played more meaningful games against each other that eliminated one rival from playoff contention.

 

I don't know. Yes I'm biased, but based on pure hatred alone, Auburn/Alabama may be tops. And most at least supposedly unbiased articles that I see around rivalry time all ususally say that OSU/UM is the best rivalry but they do almost always note that Auburn/Alabma is the most bitter. As you say, you easily find OSU fans that despise Michgan and vice versa, but in Alabama, you have to search long and hard to find a fan that does NOT despise their rival. As they say around these parts, you declare you side at birth and your loyalty never waivers...ever.

As an example, this year OSU/UM faced off both undefeated and ranked 1 and 2. Ask most any Auburn or Alabama fan if they'd like to see their rivlary reach that same status and they's say no. Because that would mean that your rival is having a good year and that's never acceptable. I want Alabma to lose every game all the time and Alabama fans feel the same way about Auburn. That game is literally talked about 365 days a year in the state of Alabama.

That may be true but there is a rivalry that hardly gets any national attention
and has those same qualities. Clemson/South Carolina, babies in SC are raised to hate either Clemson or USC. Auburn/Alabama has the same qualities as Clemson/South Carolina. two of the best rivalries in the country both from the deep south.

In the north there is Michigan/Ohio State, which is a big rivalry.However up north more people care about the NFL while in SC and Alabama College Football rules and is those rivalries are the only sporting event that matters.

 

Boca Juniors versus River Plate.

When people kill each other, repeatedly, over a sport, then you know you've got an intense rivalry going. Nothing else compares. Rangers-Celtic and Real Madrid-Barcelona come a close second with the religious and political backgrounds respectively aggravating matters.

 

Nothing is better than hearing thousands of Giants fans chating "Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!" The same goes for Sharks/Kings games.

 

NFL: Cowboys v. Washington Redskins

NHL: Who cares? It's hockey.

NBA: Celtics v. Lakers

College Football: BYU v. Utah. It doesn't get the play like OSU v. Michigan but anyone familiar with these football games knows that the quality is high and the intensity is, well, intense.

College Basketball: None of this UNC v. Dook crap. Gimme a break. That rivalry is vanilla compared to the vitriol in the KU v. Missouri rivalry. Nothing tops it.

MLB: Kansas City v. The Rest of the League. I mean c'mon every other team in baseball has cherry picked this small market team of its best players. Jermaine Dye, Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran, etc., etc.

 

Inty Edit: That's really not appropriate.

 

KU has a rivalry with Missouri? Why would a college basketball powerhouse like KU give a crap about Missouri, a standard bearer for mediocrity in college basketball? A rivalry usually indicates both teams are at least decent and capable of winning something. Kansas shouldn't even be acknowledging Missouri's existence. If KU and Missouri put their teams together, they might have enough talent to compete with the benches of Dook or UNC.

 

If KU and Missouri put their teams together, they might have enough talent to compete with the benches of Dook or UNC.

I'll give Kansas a bit more credit that than... but I will say that either Duke's OR UNC bench could beat Missouri.

Really, you don't HAVE to have two good teams to have a rivaly, but it helps when theres some equality. In other words, two teams on roughly equal footing creates the best rivalries. There may be swings where one team dominates for a while, but then the other comes back and evens it up later, but overall their roughly equal (i.e., Duke dominated UNC briefly in the early part of this decade, but its back to being pretty even, with UNC having the slight edge right now, I'd say.

In other words, KU-Mizzou pales in comparison to Duke-UNC.


And I agree that the Carolina-Clemson rivalry is one of the best, and severely underrated because of lack of publicity, but in all honesty, it can't quite match a OSU-UM. Although the baseball rivalry for USC-Clemson should be hyped a bit more, as both schools have excellent baseball teams, and they've both played in the CWS recently (even played each other there, as in 2002, where Carolina beat Clemson back to back to avoid elimation and advance to the Championship game)

 

yeah in Baseball its almost always a top 10 matchup

as far as English soccer goes, how about Blackburn vs Burnley

 

Red Sox vs Yankees

Redskins vs Cowboys

Army vs Navy

 

MLB: Red Sox-Yankees, Giants-Dodgers, Cubs-Cardinals

NFL: Al Davis vs. the NFL front office

NCAAF: Ohio State-Michigan, USC-UCLA, Florida-Florida State, California-Stanford, Army-Navy

EPL: Arsenal-Tottenham, Liverpool-Everton

World Cup: England-Germany, Argentina-Brazil, Italy-Germany

JC Senate: Mr44 vs Dizfactor or Gonk

 

NFL: Redskins vs Cowboys. Redskins rule!

NBAWhen Magic and MJ were playing) Lakers Vs. Bulls. Really MJ's Bulls vs anybody.

MLB: Red Sox Vs Yankees. I have a friend who goes postal everytime the Yankees win over Boston and he lives in NY.