How do you think Gary Oak was treated as Ash's rival?

[Gengarzilla]

Gary was just annoying at best and infuriating at worst. If you were to ask me, their "rivalry" prior to Johto hardly even involved Pokémon at all, it was just two boys trying to wind each other up. Ash and Paul instead had their identical goals drastically different Pokémon training methods to add friction. The altercations between them were about so much more than OS Ash's frequently bruised ego.