Its about giving the other guy hope just to snatch it away lol. What a sadistic bastard.
I thought the point was he had an advantage with the steal pipe, but he wanted an even bigger advantage by using the steel pipe on an opponent who wasn't expecting it.
If he had been holding the steel pipe the whole time then the other guy would have been more cautious and more likely to think something like " I need to stay out of his range until the last minute, then as soon as he tries to get in range and make his swing I'll go in for a tackle and tank a single pipe hit in order to get my hands on him and use my weight advantage" which would have made the fight a lot more uncertain.
Also, the pipe looks thin enough that it probably wouldn't have been able to end the fight in a single hit unless the guy wasn't expecting it.