knock the living daylights out of

verb3

1. •
   To beat or strike someone.

   • Boy, the fellows said he just knocked the living daylights out of him, bounced him six feet across the ground. — 1939
2. •
   To thoroughly and decisively defeat someone in a physical fight, especially by knocking out that person.

   • He won the English championship from the six-foot-three-inch, seventeen-stone Sam Hurst, the Staleybridge Infant, knocking the living daylights out of this champion — 1954
3. •
   (figurative) To greatly excel against (someone or something).

   • ...where new and better depreciation regulations and a 7% business investment credit knocked the living daylights out of normal and historical accounting procedures... — 1963