I knew you’d be the first to respond (this isn’t a jab I actually like your enthusiasm for Paul).
Pikachu was not nerfed in BW. He lost that single battle against Trip but people still decide on being silly and ignoring that Zekrom thing but let’s move on. We’re also not gonna get into the fact that Pikachu had trouble defeating a Surskit in the beginning of XY. His levels always reset in each series but at least BW managed to care and explain this time and by the time the Club Tournament happened it was well into BW.
Iris only chickened out when she was fighting Trip because Axew was babied (and yes I’ll admit this) and Emolga just didn’t listen. Emolga still proved her power however. Excadrill was her ace and was only really seen losing probably twice. He got them her wins in that streak since he was originally her ace.
Honestly I was very young when those BF episodes came out so I’d have to rewatch those Brandon episodes but my point still stands.
It’s all good. My argument is essentially that Paul’s “strength” was only really shown against Ash and kinda Merylne (but even Ash beat her so and Dawn was pretty close as well). Other than that it’s all smoke and mirrors. Outside of that he defeated Barry but didn’t Ash? Somebody has to remind me about that.
Any other opponent the writers made him look crazy. So I’m not sure how Ash beating him is more creditable. I low key want him to humble Ash though in Journeys more than any other return.
But moving on, I actually kinda hope that Alan does return. Say what you want about his character arc and rivalry but he arguably had the best design out all of the rivals.
Also, this may bit controversial but when reading through your Iris and Paul comparison power scaling, there's also another thing I want to add in.
This isn't to diminish Paul skill or strength wise as he is still a powerful rival for Ash, but I always maintained the belief that the only reason Paul is seen as such a huge obstacle for Ash to overcome is because Ash limits himself to using his most recent pokemon that he's in the middle of developing rather than his veteran powerhouses. In DPs case, his sinnoh team.
Pauls brother Reggie and Brock even sort've commented on this during that first 6v6 battle Paul and Ash and at Lake Verity (?). When seeing Paul quickly take control of the battle, Reggie literally asked Brock if Ash was only using his new pokemon against him, with Brock confirming he was only using his Sinnoh-exclusive pokemon, besides Pikachu. And because of that, Ash at that time got trounced swiftly.
Because Ash's rival always only faces his new region-exclusives, they are given somewhat of the illusion of being ace trainers that Ash has to work super hard to defeat when, in reality, Ash could arguably stomp them easily with his old pokemon. Does anyone think Paul would've still won if Ash had used, say, Sceptile? Or his older bird pokemon like Swellow? Older water types like Corphish? Hell, Charizard of all things?
My belief gets intensified even further by the fact that Paul was super surprised to hear Ash had conquered the battle frontier (in the very previous series I'll add), something that neither he or even his talented big brother could come anywhere close to beating when Brandon came into the picture. Ash's old team was able to finally beat Brandon and even his Hoenn team held their own against him after beating the other Frontier Brains.
Not to mention, IIRC, Paul himself never challenged the battle frontier, only the leagues from Kanto - Hoenn. So it's more arguable that Ash's Hoenn team could handily win against Paul.
Not to say Paul is a weak trainer, because at the end of the day, he very much isn't. But at the same time, I always felt his standing against Ash gets overrated only because of comparing Ash's most recent team against him.
