Greatest rivalry in sport?

[PadDad]

McEnroe v Borg?
Argentina v Brazil?
Celtic v Rangers?
India v Pakistan?

In that thread about baseball I recommended to Morethanjustadad a book called A Tale of Two Cities.

The introduction describes the New York Yankees vs the Boston Red Sox as "the most famous rivalry in sports".

Clearly it isn't -- only a few countries follow baseball, so it's hardly famous, really.

But what is the greatest rivalry in sport, worldwide?

US v China at the Olypmics

spurs and arsenal

dp has tons of baseball books, he's always trying to flog them on ebay if you're interested in any i can get his to list them here?

Cardiff v Swansea
Germany v Holland
England v Australia in cricket
More recently, Federer v Nadal

Most famous or Greatest?

Having experienced it, Red Sox & them,certainly is one of the fiercest, almost as toxic as Celtic and Rangers. Some great rivalries in sport have lost something lately - Scotland v England at football for example.

What about Nicklaus & Palmer?

The list is potentially endless - Russia v Czech at Olympic Ice Hockey - now that always brings out the worst!

Some of us older guys will remember Laver & Newcombe, even Rosewall & Newcombe.

..and so it goes on.

Ali v. Smokin Joe Frazier.

I like DaddyJ's nomination of China vs US at the Olympics.

To be "the greatest", I reckon the rivalry has to have

1. a really substantial number of fans invested in the outcome of the contests, with the rest of the world also paying attention

1. some kind of political or religious clash associated with it, beyond the merely sporting

That's why India v Pakistan in cricket might be my vote.

Or if we go for the most popular sport in the world, football:

On a club level it might be Rangers Celtic, except the rest of the world doesn't pay that much attention.

Probably Real Madrid v Barcelona, with the Catalans investing their separatism in Barcelona, while condemning Real Madrid as the Franco-fascist club.

Not sure what the greatest football clash would be on a national level, though.

ali vs frazier is probably my favourite outside of football.
so much history, so much righteous indignation if you are a frazier fan at the latter day beatification of ali. who racially abused frazier in the build up to fights, actively suported race segregation and even spoke at a klan rally, and yet he was the peoples champion.
so much style,skill,power and ultimately dedication to each and every fight that's obvious to even an outsider to the sport.

from football i'd have the classico and united v liverpool (complete personal bias) but the problem with football rivalries is that they have turned so ugly.
where as at the ireland england rugby game last month it would have been unheard of to not have a pint with someone from the opposition and wish them luck (but only cause i knew deep down we were gonna beat yis).

It's Hungary and the USSR at water polo:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_In_The_Water_match

Man U v Liverpool of course