Everyone knows the way to beat Rumble is to slap that RNC on as soon as you have him in deep shit; nobody just knocks him out. Augusto wrongly decided to keep punching for too long and waited until Rumble was almost back to his feet before trying to choke him. That's why there's levels to this shit.
I mean I'm kind of joking, but I absolutely did wonder if Augusto would've gotten the finish had he just hunted for the choke as soon as he had Rumble down and hurt instead of throwing a bunch of punches while he had Rumble's back instead. Rumble's head was clearly hard enough to take the punishment and still recover, but that's never been his issue. It's when he's shut down positionally and has an arm across his neck that his heart leaves the building.