Believing it would get downright ugly, the first face-to-face debate of U.S. presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was being billed as the Smackdown at the Mack, its prize-fight venue being the David S. Mack sports complex at New York’s Hofstra University.

Sphincter muscles were tightening long before the ring announcer showed up in the form of NBC moderator Lester Holt, a Democrat according to Trump, the insinuation being the fix was already in.

Political blood could therefore be smelled long before spilt, and the heavyweight matchup did not disappoint — even if former Bill Clinton paramour Gennifer Flowers didn’t show up in Trump’s corner as his anticipated and figurative cut man.

Sometimes we ask too much when it comes to political entertainment but, if America could use the resurrection of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, it would be now.

This presidential race has sent political fear and loathing to a level never before seen or anticipated, so much so that upwards of 100 million were expected to tune in to this spectacle, only 15 million shy of the record audience who watched last year’s Super Bowl XLIX.

On the morning of the debate, despite claiming it was all just coincidence, four major U.S. news agencies — the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and Politico — all gave major space quantifying Donald Trump as the greatest liar ever nominated for the presidency.

Despite that condemnation, an hour before the debate began Republican vice-presidential candidate, Mike Pence, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer with a straight and honest face that Trump was a “bold truth-teller.”

It was a punctuating moment.

Trump’s goal in this debate was not to win over those who cheer in unison when he calls Clinton “crooked Hillary,” or when he slags the status quo in Washington as being corrupt. He already has that crowd locked up.

His goal, instead, was to win over those who sit on the fence, and those who wonder how loose his cannon actually is or whether he has any credibility to assume the Oval Office.

To that end, he may have somewhat succeeded.

Trump got angry, but it was a controlled anger most of the time, as he pushed an “America first” kind of protectionism that sells well if you live south of the 49th parallel where “love it or leave it” is more than just a patriotic slogan.

Trump, for example, called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the “single worst trade deal ever” and a job-killer — something most Canadians would consider a ludicrous statement, but not blue-collar Americans who have watched their states join the Rust Belt and their town’s major employer pack up and leave.

Hillary Clinton held her own in this debate, but this was expected because she is who she is — an experienced politician with a long and extraordinary history.

Trump, on the other hand, has never spent a single day as an elected politician.

For that reason alone, he won the day.

markbonokoski@gmail.com