only he didn't shove lol. which confused me again

If you're happy to give him credit for being able to choose his betsize on the turn so that he can make a big river bet then he is probably aware that his river betsize looks stronger than a shove so I wouldn't be giving him more credit on the river just because his betsize was different to our expectation.
Unless you think that his bluffing frequency with this bet is much much smaller than this bluffing frequency when he shoves, you've gotta call this river imo