The slowing of the punch before acceleration was my attempt at a hitstop.
I got a lot of criticism, saying that they wanted more oomph in the punches, but, like you said, it's kinda awkward.
In Unreal, physics objects ignore time dilation unless the entire world is affected, so the reason it takes a second to accelerate is that I'm altering the flow of time the moment you punch. I might have to put an option in the menu to try and ease that so thanks.
And yeah, I'll look into more air control.