Arguably the "first" peering battle was whether UUnet had to pay for access
to the College Park NSS in 1989-90, which predates the CIX.
No, Dave, that's only the first commercial peering battle.
There are plenty of earlier fights that would not have been
on anything remotely like com-priv, and were not nearly as
polite as the dialogues between Rick and Al...
Sean. (who used to put the NA into NANOG, but not any more 
)