"gave Wilder a vicious one sided beating" They sparred many times, across multiple camps. It's clear that Wlad had the better of it against an inexperienced Wilder, though Bashir didn't suggest it was that lopsided. Wilder was also there to help Wlad prepare for fights, not to take his head off. How long would Wilder have lasted in Wlad's camp if he was consistently trying to knock Wlad out? Same goes for an inexperienced Joshua, who Wlad also no doubt got the better of prior to the Pulev fight. Wilder's handlers kept Wilder fighting the Stiverne's, Duhaupas's and Szpilka's prior to 2018 so it wasn't anything to do with Wlad in particular. Povetkin had never sparred Wilder to my knowledge and they didn't show much interest in fighting him. They weren't looking to fight Ortiz prior to late 2017 at the earliest. They wouldn't have made the Fury fight for Wilder's 4th defence after Szpilka.