"Actually I was conscious. I wasn't knocked out, it was a knock down. A lot of people say that what [Marquardt] had done was nice, because he didn't hit me on the floor. Maybe it was, but maybe he stopped because if he misses the punch I would tangle with him and the fight would still be going on." -Demian Maia

UFC middleweight contender Demian Maia talks to Sensei Sport TV about his 21-second flash knockout loss to Nate Marquardt at UFC 102 in August. Maia corrects the record, stating that the knockout was actually a knockdown and he postulates that Marquardt held back subsequent punches out of fear of being tangled up, not mercy, as most believe.

The punch was an overhand right which landed flush as Maia appeared to be coming in for a knee or a punch of his own. It spun the Brazilian around 180-degrees and he when down like a load of bricks with Marquardt standing on top of him, his lethal right hand loaded up again before the referee stepped in to save a defenseless Maia. He may not have been out, but the glassy, glazed over look in his eye directly following the stoppage suggests that the formerly undefeated jiu-jitsu savant was clearly more than rocked and the stoppage was probably warranted.