[quote=@Halvtand]
[@MMGiru][@Hillan] You're both on the right track.
Neji Basically told Naruto that a loser born of a loser is always a loser and awesome people that are born from awesome people like Neji will always be awesome. At that point in time this was a big blow against Neji as a "friendly" character as he was going against the main character of the series (Let's be honest, the main character will always be the best, no matter how lame they are). For some reason this conflict stuck with me and once Naruto's parents were revealed I almost couldn't believe that they would prove Neji right, only for the wrong reasons. 

It's interesting that you mentioned Lee in this [@Hillan], how do you see that playing out as a story?


[/quote]

I always saw Lee and Neji as natural opposites, even more so than Naruto and Sasuke. Sure, we don't know that much about Lee's life before becoming a ninja, but we know that he sucked at it starting out. That he had no talent for Ninjutsu, and in all honesty had nothing compared to Neji, whom despite being of the Branch part of the Hyuuga was arguably the most powerful genin of his year. 

Lee worked harder than anyone to become where he was. To become a master of the Strong Fist and a ninja without Ninjutsu. All of the techniques he employed against Gaara were developed to fight Neji and his gentle fist.

Yet, we never really did get to see their showdown, but, I want to imagine it happened during the timeskip, and that's why Neji is so different.