The point was that even if you take the most extremely favorable interpretation of his position, he still should not have been punching her. You don't want to get hit by a woman, don't date a woman who would hit you. Punching back is not the solution.

BTW, the specific details like "dragging her out of the elevator" annoy me every time they are brought up. He might be muscular, but he's still only 5'8". It's really awkward for a person that small to carry something the size of an adult human body, especially from a confined space. Said confined space also being a contributing factor to her being knocked unconscious. She struck her head in the elevator, which seems to have been a more likely cause than his hand. All that those details do is lend themselves to the notion that had she remained upright and walked out of the elevator under her own power, this whole thing would not be nearly as big a deal, when the fact is, he would have been just as wrong.

His wrongdoing was not in causing his fiancee to end up unconscious on the floor, it was in throwing a punch. The results (short of permanent injury, as appears to be the case here) are just details.

Why? It's money they already had budgeted for the Rice family, as it were. If they can arbitrarily void their agreement with him on subjective criteria, why can't they simply redirect the money to a more appropriate party?

I don't see why this is any more practical, while being more in the line of a token gesture.