Your Periodic Reminder That Sylvester Stallone Thinks Ryan Seacrest Can Beat Up Jet Li

First, a fact: No one has ever been or will ever be as good at Twitter as Sylvester Stallone was in 2010. He was an absolute delight, just firing off any old thought that popped into his head at the moment, on subjects ranging from movies to politics to life to the haters. Oh my, did Sly have things to share about the haters.

Magical, all of it, forever. I could just sit here and post 2010 Stallone tweets all day and I would never get bored. Don’t believe me? Look, here’s another one.

But that’s not the point. I mean, it is the point, kind of, and should be the point of more of our conversations, in general, but it’s not what makes any of this timely and topical. What makes it timely and topical is that the Oscars were two nights ago, and Stallone was there because of his nomination for Creed, which means he walked the Red Carpet, which means he was on Ryan Seacrest’s home turf, which means I get to remind you that Sylvester Stallone kind of maybe thinks Ryan Seacrest can beat up action star and martial arts expert Jet Li.

You see, in addition to ruminating about the haters and the state of the American political system, Sylvester Stallone also used to tweet all sorts of wild Expendables casting speculation. Sometimes this got him in trouble, like the time in 2013 he called Bruce Willis greedy and lazy, but mostly it was harmless. And sometimes it was about him remembering seeing Ryan Seacrest work out one time.

Fair enough. We’re all having fun here. And close enough on the Twitter handle. But apparently at least one Twitter user took issue with the suggestion, and Sly was having none of it.

Beware. And that thought — the one about Ryan Seacrest beating up Jet Li — seems to have bounced around a bit and eventually made a nice little home somewhere inside Stallone’s brain, because he followed that tweet up with this one, two days later.

Let’s pause here for a moment and think about something. Let’s think about Jet Li getting wind of these tweets. Let’s think about, say, one of Jet Li’s friends walking up to him and saying, “Hey, uh, Sylvester Stallone is tweeting about how Ryan Seacrest… you know, the American Idol host… about how that guy could kick your ass. Yeah, he just tweeted it again.” Let’s think about the waves and waves of confusion that must have washed over Jet Li for days as he tried to make sense of why this was happening. Let’s really, really think about that.

But Stallone didn’t stop there. Oh no. He tweeted this 17 minutes later.

There is so much I love about this tweet. Part of it is the double burn on Van Damme, not only implying Ryan Seacrest could beat him up, but also referring to him as “the one time great.” Totally unnecessary and I love it.

But the thing I love most about this tweet is the final sentence. “ASK STEVE AUSTIN, he knows.” I must know more about this. Immediately. What, exactly, does Stone Cold Steve Austin know that would back up Stallone’s claim that Ryan Seacrest could beat up Jean-Claude Van Damme? Has… has Steve Austin seen Ryan Seacrest fight? Were they in an underground fight club together? Did Ryan Seacrest beat up Steve Austin? Okay, time to update my time machine to-do list.

1. Go back to 2010 and ask Stone Cold Steve Austin why Sylvester Stallone thinks Ryan Seacrest can beat up Jean-Claude Van Damme.
2. Kill baby Hitler.
3. Get a very-very-early-Facebook Mark Zuckerberg drunk and convince him to give me 10 percent of the company if I make a Taco Bell run for him.

And Stallone wasn’t done. He was still tweeting about it almost two weeks later.

Now, this tweet brings up an important point: There’s a decent chance Stallone is just screwing around here. I honestly can’t tell. Because your first reaction when you hear that Sylvester Stallone is rambling on and on about Ryan Seacrest beating up action stars is probably something like, “Oh, Sly’s just doing some goofs.” But then you — like me — start digging through his other tweets and you see they’re all very sincere and heartfelt and you start to wonder a bit. “Is… is Sly serious here?” The only way to know for sure is to ask Steve Austin.

Unfortunately, the run of Seacrest tweets ended here, and even more unfortunately, Stallone has seriously dialed back his Twitter presence since the glory days of 2010. Now it’s mostly just stuff about how much he loved working on Creed and links to his Instagram. (Wanna see Sylvester Stallone hanging out with Ringo Starr? Here you go.) It’s heartbreaking, really. And while we don’t know exactly why Sylvester Stallone decided to stop blasting his every thought into the world via social media, one tweet provides a potential clue…

Truer words have never been typed.