>>54418360Ash and Gary's rivalry was token rivalry at best. They don't even battle in all of Indigo and their interactions amounted to just Gary shitting on Ash indirectly until they battled in the Silver Conference.
Paul and Ash was not only more personal, but also had an ideological conflict backing it with Paul acting as commentary on comfagging. They battle multiple times over the course of DP and Ash gets his ass handed to him repeatedly setting up their battle in the Pokemon league. Ash even goes out of his way to use his Sinnoh Team to makes a point about bis ideology vs Paul's. Paul's releasing of Chimchar and Ash taking it in to raise it into a beast and realising its potential when Paul could not makes a profound statement. You know the whole Ash-Greninja thing everyone goes apeshit over? It's basically just Infernape's Rage-Blaze thing but with a twist. Infernape did it first.
Gary wasn't shit by comparison.