For Ted Cruz, the time had come. He had run a highly-disciplined campaign. He’s raised ample money ($20 million in 2015 Q4) and has spent it wisely.

Cruz’s strategy was simple: Win Iowa, compete in New Hampshire to a respectable finish, take South Carolina, win the so-called SEC primary in early March (12 states) from there and waltz to the nomination as others finally fall off due to lack of money or too much ego. The aforementioned “highly-disciplined” part of the plan specifically related to not drawing the ire of Donald Trump, who destroyed Rick Perry and permanently damaged a now-irrelevant Ben Carson (among others) when crossed. Yes, Cruz’s rising poll numbers — as the billionaire admitted last night — were going to get his attention anyway and therefore make the senator a target. But here’s where the Cruz made his first big unforced error since announcing back in March: Sensing he finally had the footing to go on the offensive in an effort to take Iowa, he mocked Trump for having “New York values.”

Now… Trump could have handled this several ways: He could have responded with a petulant attack via Twitter (Interesting tidbit: Trump has averaged 16.4 Tweets per day over the past three months). He could have kneecapped Cruz with an obnoxious, outlandish remark in one of the many television and radio interviews he does per week.

But here’s where Trump deserves some credit for knowing when and how to strike: He waited for the biggest audience available to him at the time (last night’s GOP debate on Fox Business, which will show viewership numbers of somewhere in the 11-12 million range) and responded in a very poignant, authentic and even — yes — statesmanlike manner in landing the haymaker of the evening. And by the time he was done, Cruz — a skilled debater going all the way back to his Harvard days — actually looked stunned and had nothing to retort with.

Here’s Trump to Cruz via the New York Times transcript of the debate (emphasis mine):

So conservatives actually do come out of Manhattan, including William F. Buckley and others, just so you understand. (APPLAUSE) And just so — if I could, because he insulted a lot of people. I’ve had more calls on that statement that Ted made — New York is a great place. It’s got great people, it’s got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York. You had two one hundred… (APPLAUSE, including from Cruz) … you had two 110-story buildings come crashing down. I saw them come down. Thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup, probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there, and I’ve never seen anything like it. And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death — nobody understood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made. (APPLAUSE, with Cruz having a look in the split-screen knowing he’d be wise to simply take his 8-count)

A TKO for sure, and judging by all the play Trump’s response is getting this morning, is the takeaway of the night. In the end, Cruz is used to boxing with gloves on. Trump rarely fights fair, spars bare-knuckled, but was savvy enough not to resort to tackling Cruz into the mud given the big stage and audience. Instead, it was a meticulous combination on a dicey subject to invoke (9/11) and somehow didn’t sound exploitative or overdone (See: Giuliani, Rudy). Broaching 9/11 almost fifteen years later can be political quicksand, can sound almost cheesy, but Trump’s speaking style (extemporaneous, descriptive, candid) made this anything but.

Instead, Trump showed he can pivot, can adapt, can put aside the petulance and still make his point. And he’s putting on a media clinic for the rest of the field right now. Example: Many thought it was ill-advised for him to evoke Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency. But here we are many days later, and the story still has legs as Cruz’s status still is being debated. Second example: Upon bucking advice from political pundits by broaching Bill Clinton‘s personal past and Hillary’s hypocrisy on the topic of standing up to sexism, that story is still now a daily debate topic as Team Hillary (and the candidate herself) illustrates it/she has zero idea how to effectively handle it.

Will Trump’s narrative on Cruz ultimately hold up? Probably not. But creating murky waters around his chief competitor was likely Trump’s goal in the first place… and may be enough to help catch the Texas Senator in Iowa.

Moving forward, if Trump can continue to control the narcissism, the sophomore year Mean Girls stuff… and learn how to make an argument more in the manner he did last night when defending New York… watch out.

Because as Ted Cruz learned last night, Trump is showing he can even make a debate champion look foolish at a time and place of his choosing.

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Follow Joe Concha on Twitter @JoeConchaTV

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.