One of the recurring feuds on the DALLAS program was the 'battles' between Cliff Barnes and JR Ewing. The root of this was the fact that Barnes felt that the Ewings stole th oil discoveries of his father and that led to his father's decent into alcoholism. Barnes would then go on a personal vendetta to defeat the Ewings in the oil business, but his greed and self motivation would always overcome his ability to think clearly and this would often lead to his defeat. JR could always outsmart him because he knew that Barnes was greedy. He could always rely on Barnes to defeat himself.

Now, you would think that these storylines were boring as they were recycled over and over, but they remained surpringingly fresh the first few times around mainly because they played to the old Chinese saying quoted in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY: "When traveling on the path to revenge be sure to dig two graves."

To a great extent, Ciff Barnes is a man drievn by greed, ego and revenge and it is always his downfall. Actually, it is a repeatd downfall that the producers of DALLAS seemingly enjoyed recycing, but up until at least the 7th season of DALLAS it remained engaging. Barnes wants to defeat JR to show him he is a winner. Since JR's father defeated Cliff's father in the oil business many years prior, Cliff now fights the battle with himself a surrogate for his father battling Jock Ewing in the form of JR.

However, his motives always return to greed and a lust for power that blinds his quest for revenge and, tulimately, blinds his judgment leading him to one downfall after another.