The general consensus from the message boards and the Internet as a whole is that John Cena is owning The Rock in their feud. For the first time since his Hall of Fame career began, The Rock looks lost. It’s as if Rocky suddenly can’t bring it on the mic like we all expect him to.

Yet what is lost in all this is the fact that maybe it’s not The Rock who lost it but rather the WWE telling Rocky to take it down a notch.

John Cena has always had above average mic skills, a fact we learned from the various rap promos he did during his doctor of thuganomics gimmick. This simple fact tends to get lost when we, as the audience, are so used to Cena doing his comedy routine, which usually falls on deaf ears.

But every now and then Cena gets the opportunity to slide back into his comfort zone, the place where he suddenly develops a West Newbury accent and talks in rhyme. A place where his PG persona disappears and in comes a swag of overconfidence. We witnessed that version of Cena again last night (March 5, 2012) in his hometown of Boston.

The Cena we have been forced to watch all these years is seemingly gone for the time being, and in his place is a version of himself we have been clamoring to see for years on end. The question on hand though is would the "edgier" John Cena be enough to get a reaction from the crowd that the WWE desires?

The answer was revealed last night when the city of Boston, a town that has famously jeered their own hometown hero in Cena, booed The Rock. For the first time since his last heel turn, The People's Champ got a mixed reaction. After listening to a month of promos carefully crafted for him by the higher ups of the WWE, the crowd seemingly is buying into what John Cena is selling.

The Rock, for his part, is playing this whole ideal as masterfully as only he possibly could. As talks continue to grow about the disdain backstage towards his coming back to the WWE only to steal the spotlight of the younger wrestlers, what is being taken for granted is the fact that Rocky is making the WWE’s biggest commodity seem important again. The Rock could easily destroy every argument Cena throws his way, yet he is letting Cena get over as much possible by not responding the way we are accustomed to.

The Rock has let Cena win the last two weeks by basically playing a character that is far less than what he's always been in the past. The intensity is there, but the bravado of the Brahma Bull looks to be on hold until the crowd reactions are truly split, something WWE hopes to happen in time for WrestleMania 28 in Miami on April 1.

It may be too small of a sample to really measure how successful this plan may be going forward, but if last night is any indication in terms of booking and crowd reaction, The Rock might have to continue letting Cena get over.