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Time of India
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Stephanie Vaquer: The workhorse of WWE's Worlds Collide and Money in the Bank weekend
Stephanie Vaquer, a rising star in WWE, is set to compete in two major events this weekend. First, she will team up with Lola Vice at the WWE and AAA co-produced event, Worlds Collide, to face Dalys and Chik Tormenta. This match, scheduled for June 7 at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, marks a significant collaboration between WWE and AAA, showcasing talents from both promotions. Later that same day, Vaquer will compete in the Women's Money in the Bank ladder match at the Intuit Dome in California. She will face formidable opponents, including Rhea Ripley, Giulia, Roxanne Perez, Alexa Bliss, and Naomi. The winner of this match earns a contract for a championship opportunity at any time, adding high stakes to the contest. Rising through the ranks Stephanie Vaquer's journey in WWE has been marked by significant achievements. She made a notable debut on June 2 episode of WWE Raw by winning a triple threat match against Liv Morgan and Ivy Nile, securing her spot in the Money in the Bank ladder match. Earlier, at NXT Roadblock on March 11, she defeated Giulia in a Winner Takes All match, becoming the first female double champion in NXT history. STEPHANIE VAQUER. #SmackDown Four days later, the 'Dark Angel' was part of WWE Smackdown on June 6 episode on the Money in the Bank week. She was part of a six-woman tag-team match, with Rhea Ripley and Alexa Bliss at her side. They faced Roxanne, Guilia, and Naomi. Her commitment throughout the weekend has gotten her flowers from the fans. Now, she will be part of two marquee matches on the same day, once competing in the WWE NXT x AAA Worlds Collide and then in the Money in the Bank PLE. According to reports, Stephanie Vaquer ranks second in most number of matches in 2025, competing in 29 matches in the WWE ring, just behind LA Knight who has taken part in 30 matches. Her commendable in-ring duties have raised her stakes as a workhorse in the company. The 32-year-old Vaquer joined WWE in 2024, and has looked like a star since she stepped into the ring. Her testament and dedication has hailed fans to call her the ultimate workhorse of the weekend due to that.
Times
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Elaine Wynn obituary: hotelier who built up Las Vegas as resort
Arriving in Las Vegas in 1967 to seek her fortune, Elaine Wynn felt intimidated by Sin City's louche carnival of showgirls, sequins and sex. Wynn and her property developer husband, Steve, had a grander vision in which Vegas could be classy as well as crass, without sacrificing its trademark commitment to excess. Over the next decades the power couple created ever more opulent casino resorts that galvanised the gentrification of the gambling mecca. That the Las Vegas strip is now a place for Michelin-starred chefs, fine art and fountains as well as slot machines, all-you-can-eat bargain buffets and 24-hour wedding chapels owes much to the Wynns. Steve built prominent hotels including the Mirage, Treasure Island, the Bellagio and the Wynn with his self-possessed wife at his side as company co-founder, fostering community relations and channelling her love of high-end art and design into the look and feel of the properties. Her waspish husband's more flamboyant personality, and perhaps a culture of sexism in the gambling business, caused Elaine's contribution to the Wynn empire to be overlooked — until their relationship imploded and boardroom battles and a sex scandal led to greater recognition of her talents. 'Steve had the big ideas and pursued them as a force of nature; Elaine was his full partner, contributing good taste and maintaining the roots of the company's broader relationships with Las Vegas and Nevada,' the journalist Christina Binkley wrote in her book about Vegas real estate, Winner Takes All. Famous for its Siegfried & Roy big-cat magic show and its artificial erupting volcano, the now-defunct Mirage was said to be the largest and most expensive casino-hotel constructed when it opened at a cost of $630 million in 1989. The first new resort on the Strip in 16 years, it triggered a mega-resort boom. Wynn's pirate-themed Treasure Island began welcoming gamblers four years later. In 1998 he again shattered the hotel cost record with the $1.6 billion, 3,000-room Bellagio, renowned for its grandiose 460ft fountains show in front of the property. Placing an emphasis on luxury and scale, the $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas opened in 2005. As Vanity Fair noted, it boasted '2,700 rooms, 18 restaurants, two theatres, a man-made mountain, 1,960 slot machines, an 18-hole golf course, an artificial lake, two ballrooms, a 38,000 sq ft spa and fitness centre, topiary gardens, a museum with priceless works of art from the Wynn Collection, 31 boutiques, five swimming pools, a car dealership (Ferrari and Maserati), and two wedding chapels'. Though preferring understated elegance to extravagant ostentation in her personal life, Elaine enjoyed the trappings of wealth and counted Warren Buffett, Karl Lagerfeld and Oscar de la Renta among her many famous friends. At one gala, Hugh Jackman performed a song to celebrate her birthday, with Elizabeth Taylor in the audience and Alain Ducasse providing the catering. But her relationship with Steve was complex. They divorced in 1986 but continued living together and remarried at the Waldorf Astoria in New York in 1991. They divorced again in 2010. It emerged that while still married, Steve had met Andrea Hissom, a British divorcee more than 20 years his junior, in St Tropez. 'I get to go to bed at night with this lady who is sweet and perfect. She's 46 but looks 18,' he explained to a reporter. Wynn and Hissom married in 2011 at the Wynn Las Vegas in a ceremony attended by Donald Trump, Celine Dion and Sylvester Stallone, with Clint Eastwood as best man. 'I obviously needed a man like Steve for his charisma, passion and enthusiasm and I am sorry we don't have a personal relationship any more. But his character is a very demanding one and I am an alpha female. I found I had to compromise to maintain the relationship and I did that because of our children,' Elaine said in 2010. Steve and Elaine were respectively the second and third largest shareholders in Wynn Resorts after Steve agreed to transfer $741 million worth of stock to Elaine in their 2010 divorce settlement. But he held voting rights over Elaine's shareholding and their combined stake was enough for him to maintain control of the company. After they divorced for the second time, Elaine sued Steve in 2012 for the ability to sell her shares freely, igniting a long, complex and acrimonious boardroom battle. Fearing that she was threatening the company's future by undermining Steve, the directors ousted her from the board in 2015. The woman dubbed the Queen of Las Vegas was dethroned but not finished. As the MeToo movement grew, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 that dozens of people, including Wynn Resorts employees, had accused Steve of sexual misconduct. The article alleged a decades-long pattern of disturbing conduct enabled by company managers that included pressurising workers to perform sex acts. One accuser, a manicurist, was reported to have received a $7.5 million settlement. Wynn strongly denied the accusations, calling them 'preposterous', but quickly resigned as finance chair of the Republican National Committee, a position for which he had been selected by his friend, President Trump. He then quit as chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts and the firm was plunged into turmoil. Steve sold his entire stake, leaving Elaine as the largest shareholder. Influential again, she embarked on an effort to reshape the board and the corporate culture by removing members loyal to her former husband. 'My mission is to resurrect the integrity of this extraordinary company that is really the capstone of my professional life,' she told The New York Times. 'I could just quietly sell my shares and go off into the sunset and pursue philanthropy. But my mantra is, it's not where you start in life, it's where you end up. And I'm not about to go off and leave this company that I helped build as tarnished as it has become.' Elaine Farrell Pascal was born in New York City in 1942, to Jules, a package tour salesman in Miami, and Lee (née Stollman). She was named Miss Miami Beach in 1960. Steve, an English literature student at the University of Pennsylvania, was on vacation in Miami when they met in 1961 on a blind date arranged by their parents. They married two years later and moved to Maryland, where Steve managed his family's struggling bingo-hall business after his father's death and Elaine studied political science at George Washington University in the American capital. In search of better business opportunities, the Wynns moved to Las Vegas in 1967 and Steve got his start by taking a stake in the Frontier, a since-shuttered casino-hotel. 'I felt threatened by Las Vegas. It seemed very fast for a middle-class Jewish girl,' she told The New York Times. 'There was a lot of sexual energy … It was a funny experience for me at 24 or 25 to be feeling over the hill already. I remember looking at myself and thinking, 'Oh, my God, I'm this young matron'. It was a totally foolish feeling to have, but it revealed my insecurity at the time. I got over it quickly.' While Steve chiefly made political donations to Republicans, Elaine was an eager supporter of Barack Obama. As president the Democrat named her to the board of trustees of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. When not at her properties in Beverly Hills and New York City, Elaine lived in a high-rise condominium overlooking the Wynn Las Vegas with mountain views and an interior designed by Michael Smith, who was appointed by the Obamas to redecorate the White House residential areas. She collected art, acquiring the Francis Bacon triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, in 2013 for $142.4 million: at the time, the highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction. 'I had buyer's remorse,' she told Forbes magazine. 'But only for 30 minutes.' She oversaw the fine art gallery at the Bellagio and was co-chair of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2016, Forbes estimated her art collection to be worth $375 million. At the time of her death it put her wealth at $2 billion. As well as improving the Las Vegas visitor experience, she sought to make the city more appealing to its residents, becoming an energetic philanthropist in education and the arts. She was president of the Nevada state education board and deeply involved in a national organisation seeking to prevent children from dropping out of school. An elementary school in Las Vegas bears her name. In her final years she advocated for the creation of a new art museum in the city that is aiming to open in 2028. She is survived by her daughters with Wynn: Gillian, a philanthropist; and Kevyn, a shoe designer. In 1993, Kevyn, then 26, was kidnapped at gunpoint from her home in Las Vegas. After an ordeal of several hours she was recovered, tied up in a vehicle in a car park, when Steve paid a $1.5 million ransom with cash from the Mirage casino cage. He did not tell his wife until Kevyn was safe. 'I think the height of my admiration and respect and love for Steve centres on that episode,' Elaine told a reporter. 'I never, ever questioned that he did the right thing. He spared me.' Elaine kept a Manet after the second split while Steve, who held on to Le Rêve, a Picasso that he damaged by accidentally putting an elbow through the canvas in 2006 while showing it to friends including the film-maker Nora Ephron. After restoration he sold it to a hedge fund manager for $155 million. 'Did I create an environment that allowed him to thrive?' she reflected in a 2012 interview. 'Did I create an anchoring to the personality that made us have good equilibrium? That's what I'd say I hope my contribution is.' Elaine Wynn, casino operator and philanthropist, was born on April 28, 1942. She died of heart failure on April 14, 2025, aged 82
