flexing 30 year old romex to move it, bad idea?

[EricU]

I want to move a wall in my basement, and there is a junction box in the way of the new location.  There is only one wire that really needs to move with the box, I'm adding another circuit that obsoletes the others.  This wire is a 12/3.  Out in the span between joists, it seems pretty flexible, but right at the box it doesn't.  There is a fairly tight 90 degree bend at a joist that needs to be reversed in order to get it so a new junction box is in a reasonable place. I can't really judge the condition of the wire at the bend.

Am I asking for trouble just bending this wire back on itself? I guess I could try rotating the existing 90 degree bend around without un-bending it.  That's putting a twist in the wire though.

I am not sure where this wire comes from.  It probably goes back to the panel in the garage, so it would be hard to replace it with new wire.  I'm not positive I could find a place for a junction box if I cut it short.

[TDKPE]

I would put the 180 degree twist into it, over the longest length possible, rather than reversing the bend. Another possibility would be to shorten the existing cable and move the box, and run new from there to the next location, assuming that's accessible. At only 30 years old, it shouldn't be crispy like if it was from the 60's, but I would man-handle it as little as possible anyway.

[EricU]

I'm going to try to trace it back further to see if another j-box is possible.  It's sort of a busy area there, with walls and wiring coming out of a subpanel.