Neiji vs. the spider guy....I GUESS I'll have to allow that as a counterpoint. Never really liked that fight (Move from under the fucking spider...). Good point though, I forgot about that.

But for the Naruto vs. Neiji fight, indeed I do want to say the kyubi made Naruto stronger. The passive regeneration abilities it gives likely allowed him to take the pummeling neiji was giving him most of the fight. Furthermore, until the kyubi was released, Naruto was outmatched. It took the Kyubi's power to give Naruto an opportunity to make use of his cleverness. In otherwords, when Naruto finally used a power that demonstrated that he was strength wise comparable to Neiji, THEN his cleverness gave him the edge. Up until that point, no trick he had up his sleeve mattered in the slightest.