Interesting set of comparisons! I like the thought this fight makes a pair of bookends with the friendly fight in the Pilot.
I think that we're supposed to understand that Dean loses the fist fight in 4.21 because Sam is now dee-monically enhanced. But I think the comparison you do to earlier fights is interesting because it puts them in the context of communication between the brothers.
When the physical conflict isn't being supernaturally induced, it has always been Dean punching Sam when he can't (won't) find the words to express his anger and frustration (in addition to the ones you mention, I'm thinking of the mild punch he throws at the end of BUaBS).
It's not the best form of communication, obviously, but for Dean, I feel like he thinks a punch might be cleaner than the words he would be otherwise forced into saying.
Here, it's Sam, much more a-typically, who resorts to physical violence rather than trying to continue the conversation (yet another sign that it's not!Sam, I guess, in a literal way).
And then Dean falls back on old words, words that aren't his own, and that were disastrous the first time the first time they were spoken.
Which is just to say: I know communication has never been the strong suit of the Bros. Winchester, but here, where words fail, and bodies fail, it seems pretty bleak!
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I think that we're supposed to understand that Dean loses the fist fight in 4.21 because Sam is now dee-monically enhanced. But I think the comparison you do to earlier fights is interesting because it puts them in the context of communication between the brothers.
When the physical conflict isn't being supernaturally induced, it has always been Dean punching Sam when he can't (won't) find the words to express his anger and frustration (in addition to the ones you mention, I'm thinking of the mild punch he throws at the end of BUaBS).
It's not the best form of communication, obviously, but for Dean, I feel like he thinks a punch might be cleaner than the words he would be otherwise forced into saying.
Here, it's Sam, much more a-typically, who resorts to physical violence rather than trying to continue the conversation (yet another sign that it's not!Sam, I guess, in a literal way).
And then Dean falls back on old words, words that aren't his own, and that were disastrous the first time the first time they were spoken.
Which is just to say: I know communication has never been the strong suit of the Bros. Winchester, but here, where words fail, and bodies fail, it seems pretty bleak!