Not courage... arrogance and the delusion it brings. He honestly thought he had a chance... and honestly thinks so now.
The courage bit was kind of ironic, although not entirely.
To answer you though, I honestly don't know what he was thinking at the moment and what he's thinking now, he's either delusional or desperate for attention. Considering his past, both options are really sad. It wil however help him out fixing that ego of his, if he can be just humble enough to learn from each time he made an ass of himself, and he's starting to collect those.