Rumor Roundup: Royal Rumble edition (Possible SPOILERS)

As usual, there’s a lot of chatter about what should be an eventful night at WWE’s annual Royal Rumble premium live event later on this evening (Jan. 27) in St. Petersburg, Florida.

This special edition of our Rumor Roundup feature is a way to put those various tidbits in one place and give you a chance to discuss them. Feel free to share anything you’ve heard or read in the comments (usual rumor caveats* apply)!

Rumble Rumors:

• A PW Insider Elite report says Jordynne Grace will be in the Women’s Rumble, and she’ll enter to her TNA theme and be introduced as “Knockouts World champion”.
• Grace could be the “off the wall surprise” Fightful heard about when they learned WWE reached out to other companies last weekend about having their talent in the Rumbles.
• WWE’s discussed having Jade Cargill make her in-ring debut in the Women’s Rumble, according to Fightful Select. They also heard she was present at Thursday’s rehearsal for the match.
• Fightful also heard that WWE deliberately didn’t announce many names for this year’s Rumble matches to leave room for surprises.
• One of those was planned to be used by Brock Lesnar, per Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio. Meltzer says Lesnar was going to be a surprise return in the Men’s Rumble prior to The Wall Street Journal named him in their report on the latest allegations against Vince McMahon.
• PW Insider adds that Lesnar isn’t in Florida, and word going around at SmackDown last night was that he wouldn’t be at tonight’s premium live event, with some sources using the word “withdrawn” to describe his status. It’s believed an NXT talent could take the spot that was planned for Brock.
• Speaking of NXT talent, Fightful says Blair Davenport, Tiffany Stratton, and Carmelo Hayes are at Tropicana Field ahead of Royal Rumble.
• CM Punk fed into speculation of an AJ Lee surprise return tonight by posting a picture of himself with a women who could be his wife at an airport baggage claim on his Instagram Story.
• Another possible surprise return could be Sonya Deville. PW Insider noted she’s been training for her comeback from a torn ACL at the Performance Center recently, and will be in Tampa/St. Pete this weekend.

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.