CNBC Bill Ackman/Carl Icahn showdown on CNBC.

The Bill Ackman/Carl Icahn showdown on CNBC is one that floor traders at the New York Stock Exchange won’t soon forget.

“I can’t recall a situation where everybody pretty much stopped, watched and listened to two big Wall Street names go at it back and forth like that,” Jonathan Corpina, senior managing partner at NYSE floor broker Meridian Equity Partners, told MarketBeat.

Two proverbial masters of the universe attacked each other on live television, like a couple of school kids. The Icahn/Ackman smackdown lasted nearly 45 minutes uninterrupted, the kind of air time usually reserved for major breaking news. The fight was only tangentially about Herbalife Ltd. They immediately took it back to a decade-old deal that has been through numerous court rulings.

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For the market, it was a classic moment. With every big zinger from Ackman or Icahn, you could hear hoots erupting on the floor of the NYSE (the show is broadcast from the exchange), after about seven seconds – the time it took the broadcast to travel down to the floor’s sets.

Corpina was down on the NYSE floor Friday afternoon when the drama unfolded. “I was watching my Twitter feed and was alerted to what was going on because the sound wasn’t on the TVs around me,” he said. “As people became aware of what was going on, everybody turned in to the same channel and everyone turned the volume up. You could hear in unison the conversation that was going on.”

Icahn, who called in while Ackman was being interviewed, was freely profane, several times using the kind of language that would have gotten a network station in trouble with the Federal Communications Commission.

Michael Shea, managing partner at Direct Access Partners, was sitting upstairs at the NYSE as the spat took place.

“I have two eyes and two ears and I can tell you one of those four are always on business television,” Shea said in a chat with MarketBeat. “Once it became apparent that this was going to be a prize fight, everybody’s attention switched to what was going on on the TV.”

So, the big question is who won?

“Clearly both guys scored some points and both guys took some hits,” he said. “I think Ackman might be a better debater, but I think that Icahn spoke with his own unique sense of certainty.

“All I can tell you is for a slowish Friday afternoon on Wall Street, this was a pleasant surprise.”

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