Rubio did awful in his early exchanges with Christie, i.e., the RoboRubio canned answers. But he did better as the night went along and recovered somewhat. His strong pro-life answer on the abortion question was excellent.
I didn't see the debate tonight, but there seems to be a general consensus that Rubio kept repeating well rehearsed talking points. Consequently, he seems to be getting a poor rating for tonight's performance in the polls that are now coming out.
It was just one of his canned answers that he recited well. Cruz is no less scripted than Rubio, he just uses fancier lawyerly language. For example, noone but a politician talks about “increasing the number of fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft”, real people say “more airplanes and helicopters”.