Rumor Roundup: Royal Rumble favorite, CM Punk, Ricky Starks pulled, more!

Speculating on the rumors surrounding pro wrestling is a favored pastime of many fans, perhaps second only to actually watching the matches. In this daily column, we take a look at the latest rumors being churned out by the pro wrestling rumor mill.

Important reminder: Rumors are just that — rumors. None of this has been confirmed as fact, it’s just circulating around the pro wrestling rumor mill. We track rumor accuracy in a weekly feature called Rumor Look Back you can find here. Remember, take it all with a grain of salt.

Rumors for the Day:

• BetOnline’s first odds to win the men’s Royal Rumble next February have John Cena as the favorite.
• CM Punk returning to be the fifth member of the OG Bloodline at Survivor Series was always the plan, according to Fightful Select.
• For that matter, Punk continues to receive high marks regarding how he’s been since his return to WWE last year.
• Ricky Starks has been pulled from all planned appearances in GCW by AEW, says Fightful Select, and it’s apparently due to comments GCW’s Effy made about Tony Khan’s father.
• Fightful says they haven’t heard about Oba Femi being backstage at NXT since Halloween Havoc.
• For whatever it’s worth, Rob Van Dam said on his podcast that GCW reached out to him about an appearance but they couldn’t agree to financial terms.

If you have heard of any interesting rumors that you’d like to add, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Just remember they are rumors and not confirmed as fact, so please take them as such. And check our weekly Rumor Look Back here to keep track of how often rumors turn out to be correct.