IF the narrative for a pay-perview event is “without PPV this fight can’t be made”, it leads me to two points. Firstly, in the instance of Joseph Parker v Dereck Chisora, my reply would be “so be it”. There’s no great loss to anyone if this fight doesn’t get made. It’s not an uninteresting fight but it matters little in the heavyweight landscape - ‘a fight to be the gatekeeper of the heavyweight top 10’ I saw it accurately described. As you covered, Chisora’s record in fights that matter is poor. Parker, judged on his record, style and recent form is not box office material either. It’s questionable whether either would have ever been PPV previously but for the opposition they were facing.
Now they are passed off as PPV veteran fighters as a result.