top sports rivalries of all time

Dallas and San Francisco played several classics in the 1970 s and 1980 s consecutive NFC Championship meetings in 1970 and 1971, the Cowboys playoff comeback win in 1972 and The Catch a decade later come to mind. But it wasn t until the early 1990 s that the rivalry became truly historic. Three consecutive NFC title games from 1992-1994 pitted Dallas against San Francisco. Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and Jimmy Johnson topped NFL MVP Steve Young s 49ers 30-20 in one of the most brutal and thrilling contests of the decade. A year later, the Cowboys earned a repeat trip to the Super Bowl, again by besting the 49ers, 38-21. Young finally got by Dallas in 1994, first in the regular season (21-14 at Candlestick), then again in the NFC title game, 38-28.