Ali clearly did not think he knocked Liston out. In his own words in Thomas Hauser’s 1991 biography: “The punch jarred him. It was a good punch, but I didn’t think I hit him so hard that he couldn’t have gotten up. Once he went down, I got excited. I forgot about the rules.” In that same book, Liston, quoted two years after the fight: “Ali knocked me down with a sharp punch. I was down but not hurt, but I looked up and saw Ali standing over me. … Ali is waiting to hit me, the ref can’t control him.”