Crunch Time: On Jimmy Snuka, ESPN’s First Take and Dion Lewis

Crunch Time is Metro’s daily look at the rumors and gossip of the sports world.

Unsolved mystery

Pro wrestling legend Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka died on Sunday and WWE ran a tribute to him Monday. What’s crazy about this wrestling death is that the 73-year-old Snuka had murder charges dropped against him just two weeks ago as he was deemed not competent to stand trial. A longstanding wrestling rumor was that Snuka murdered his girlfriend in 1983. Snuka’s story was that he found his girlfriend, Nancy Argentino, dead in a hotel room with three dozen cuts and bruises. Officials determined at the time that she was hit consistently with a stationary object before dying. File under unsolved mystery that will never be solved.

Up for debate

Those sports shows where a white guy and a black guy scream at each other while a good looking brunette female attempts to direct traffic get huuuuge TV ratings for a weekday morning. The noise from ESPN’s First Take and FS1’s The Undisputed provides great background sound for gym locker rooms and dentist offices, but it’s decidedly unhealthy to, ya know, actually listen to the manufactured things these people are saying. All cynicism and jealousy aside, here’s a fun fact about First Take. Wildly popular host Molly Qerim is dating wildly popular NBA on ESPN personality and former NBA player Jalen Rose. How about that?!

Dealing Dion

Former Eagles linebacker Emmanuel Acho tweeted out during the Patriots – Texans game, “To think, I got traded for #DionLewis back in 2013 … someone needs to be fired for that. He a beast!” Acho is currently unemployed in football and Lewis had three touchdowns against Houston. Former Browns (and Eagles) executive Joe Banner played along, tweeting at Acho, “I traded you for Dion and got fired. Go figure! Hope you are well.” For the record, current Eagles executive Howie Roseman was the one who brought Acho to Philly and shipped Lewis to Cleveland.