At the first two presidential debates, Bill Clinton and Melania Trump shook hands as they headed to their seats to watch their spouses, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, spar on stage.

At the third and final presidential debate of the 2016 election, there will be no handshake.

The customary greeting between spouses has been excised from the proceedings on Wednesday night in Las Vegas, the brief moment of civility falling victim of the increasingly vulgar battle between the two campaigns.

According to The New York Times , Clinton's campaign requested – and was granted – a change in the format for the family entrances for the last clash between the candidates.

The change came following the sideline fireworks at the second debate on Oct. 9 in St. Louis, when just an hour before debate began the GOP nominee held a press conference featuring three women who had accused former President Clinton of sexual assault, and a fourth woman whose alleged rapist was defended by court-appointed attorney Hillary Rodham. The four women – Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones and Kathy Shelton – were then seated with the audience in the debate hall.

But the Trump campaign had tried, and was narrowly thwarted by the Commission on Presidential Debates, to have the women sat in the VIP box. If they had succeeded, the women would have come in with Trump's family, and would have come face-to-face with the former president.

"We were going to put the four women in the VIP box," former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump surrogate, told The Washington Post. "We had it all set. We wanted to have them shake hands with Bill, to see if Bill would shake hands with them."

The GOP nominee's slide in the polls began after the first debate, when he tangled with a former Miss Universe who claimed Trump called her "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping."

Then came the 2005 "Access Hollywood" video in which he can be heard bragging about hitting on a married woman and claiming to kiss and grope women without permission; nearly a dozen women have since come forward to say Trump assaulted them.

If the gambit of bringing Bill Clinton's accusers into the room was an attempt to distract from the video, Hillary Clinton's campaign expects Trump could try something even more outrageous as his tumble in the polls continues.

Already, Trump's campaign has announced it will bring President Barack Obama's Kenyan-born half-brother, Malik, to Wednesday's debate. He has also invited Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, who died in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attacks and blames Clinton for "murdering" her son. Clinton’s team has invited two outspoken Trump critics, billionaires Mark Cuban and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman.