I was at work thinking about what goals the rivals had and I realized most of them don't give a fuck about being champion or gyms in general. Blue, trace(on a technicality), N, hau (another technicality), the gen 8 rivals, and Nemona are the only rivals that care about being champion, trace is only champion cause blue was the champion hau just happened to be the only other guy doing the island challenge and it's another thing to try and impress his grandpa with. The others are either generic "I wanna get stronger" guys or don't have battle related goals like the gen 3 rivals don't have goals they exist to fight you and that's it. Barry and cheren care about gyms battles but that's it they don't care about being champion at least not that I remember.