When exactly did Patterson start to duck Liston?

From memory, Floyd never wanted to duck Liston. Way to proud for that. Cus didn't want Floyd anywhere near him though. I'm sure Floyd eventually disobeyed Cus to make the fight happen, with the rather inevitable consequence. I always remember Henry Cooper's manager quipping that he'd put Henry in with Floyd, but he didn't want him to walk on the same side of the street as Liston...

 

This thread is interesting
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...y-protect-floyd-patterson-as-champion.662759/

 

He didn't really duck Liston if we go by timeline but its very clear Cus D Amato and others wanted him to.

Your understanding from the first post is more or less correct. Liston became clear cut number 1 contender when he defeated Folley and Machen in late 1960.

 

A few quick takes:

1) It is undeniable there was some ducking of Liston. Back then it was something widely rumoured and discussed. IIRC

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, asking when he was going to man up and face Liston.

2) Certainly it can be argued it was not Patterson the one ducking, but

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. Again, IIRC in his memories Patterson stated that he had to dump Cus first in order to fight Liston, because Cus wanted nothing to do with Liston.

3) Liston was not the only case of ducking by Patterson due to Cus' antics. It is widely known that Cus kept Patterson out of the HW division

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, and only made his move once Rocky retired.

4) Although it is true lots of HOF and ATG have some ducking in their resumes, what makes Patterson's case so egregious is not just because Liston was such an outstanding challenger, but also because

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. There are several other outstanding fighters like

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who never got a chance to fight Patterson for a title because he ran a dang Tour of France on his bycicle.

5) To his credit, once Patterson got away from Cus' scheming

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bravely even if he was badly outmatched and afterwards fought pretty much everybody around, cementing his legacy as a true ATG.

 

This is spot on,,,,

 

However long Floyd ducked Liston, he made up for it when he got in the ring.

In less than two full rounds of action, it can be fairly said that Floyd didn’t duck anything — in fact, he didn’t duck, slip, parry or allow himself to be missed by anything Sonny threw his way.

 

I think history has been unkind to Patterson. He was insanely quick, brave, good power, athletic. A small heavyweight even for his era. 86kg i think!!

 

Floyd was kind of the Jimmy Carter of heavyweight champions.

Not a great president or champ, but a great ex-president/ex-champ.

 

Floyd was a better fighter after he lost the title.

And if I recall correctly, JFK didn't tell him he needed to fight Liston, he told him he needed to BEAT Liston because folks didn't want Sonny anywhere near polite company, let alone the heavyweight championship. And that pressure is one of the reasons Floyd was such a mental basket case heading into that fight.

 

None of this is true. Have you actually watched their fight? Patterson actually makes Liston miss a fair bit at least in their first fight.

 

Part of that is being a 2x HW champion put pressure on him to win the 3rd and this prompted him to fight the hardest SOS he possibly could in the hopes of getting that record.