The Who and Led Zeppelin have a long running feud. The Who was around first but The Yardbirds were first. Jimmy Page replaced Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds. They all did blues-rock. Blues music was big in the UK.
We invaded Britain long before they invaded us.
To me Led Zeppelin was more like Cream than the Who. Zep and Cream had a strong grounding in blues music. The Who was more like straight ahead rock with less attachment to the blues. This makes the Who more modern in a sense, because most modern rock has lost its “blues consciousness”.