What resulted was a muddled mess, with both candidates gaining the upper hand on occasion and stumbling in other moments.
Given that Mr Trump's campaign has been in freefall over the past 48 hours, anything less than a total Jack-Nicholson-at-the-end-of-A-Few-Good-Men style meltdown onstage has to be deemed a marginal success on his part, and so it was.
The prospect that any significant portion of what is sure to be a massive television audience emerged from the evening with any change of opinion, however, is unlikely.
