Staying centered, all options in your repertoire are available to you. Then you are not a slave to your own impulses, emotions, train of thought, predetermined beliefs, or anything else. From there, you can respond with fury or calmness, logical discussion or emotional rant, truth or lies, vacuous threats or a punch in the nose, or anything else that you suspect will resolve the situation to your satisfaction.
Or so the theory goes
What the fellow did worked in this situation: He got his parking space back when he needed it and he seems to have kept the peace with the neighbor and presumably with his wife. From my view, it was a significant achievement that the neighbor's <i>intent</i> to fight was resolved in the encounter. It was not just assertion of dominance, leaving something to fester; rather, it was neutralized. Good stuff