All kinds of excuses for the man. The fact remains. He wanted to quit. In science, if you have a hypothesis, you can come up with a billion examples where it is true, but just one case where it is not overcomes that billion and proves it wrong.
I don't think he wanted to QUIT per se, but he felt he was being sabotaged and wanted to expose the situation to everyone. He didn't want to quit because the going was getting too rough for him. He was spanking Liston's ass. Ali/Clay could withstand hellacious punishment but wasn't receiving anything like that from Sonny. He simply wanted the world to know that there was foul play.