Biography: Diane Fischer of Dee Lee Promotions

Photo credit:  Diane Fischer – Courtesy to be published with biography

Dee Lee…the mother…Dee Lee…the loving daughter…Dee Lee…the meat cutter…Dee Lee…Atlantic City’s hairdresser to the stars…Dee Lee…the community difference maker…and Dee Lee…the glamorous, fierce, groundbreaking boxing promoter.  Just who is the gorgeous red head named Dee Lee and why have so many people of all ages and from all walks of life find her so magnetic?  It is because she has been, and remains, all those things and more!  She’s Dee Lee!  There’s no one in boxing, or anywhere else, quite like Diane Lee Fischer Cristiano.

Diane Lee fell in love with boxing during her teenage years.  She watched the Friday Night Fights with her father, Jack Trevethan.  Her first boxing hero was none other than Archie Moore, but her first true hero was her father.  It was he who fostered and nurtured the independent spirit that has guided her life and enabled her to achieve the accomplishments of which many only dream.  She honored her father at each of her 70+ professional boxing promotions with a banner that read “My Daddy’s Dream”.

Boxing, like life, is filled with thrilling accomplishments and heartbreaking setbacks.  Diane has experienced both.  She fell in love and married four times.  In the days following one of her most memorable fight promotions, she discovered husband number three had embezzled the profits.  In 1982, at the age of 34, she experienced a nightmare that no parent should ever have to endure.  She was a single parent working in the meat cutter’s union when her 16-year-old daughter, Dawn Lee, was killed in a car accident caused when another driver ran a stop sign.  In the blink of an eye her life was shattered, and she was cast adrift with her grief.  At the lowest point in her life, it was her father who reminded her ‘Diane, you can do…or can be…whatever you choose to be, but it’s up to you’.  Within eighteen months she became a hairdresser in the fledgling Atlantic City casino industry.  Her skills and personality were coveted by stars like Diane Carroll, Joan Rivers, and The Pointer Sisters.  When the stars came to town, Dee Lee was on their hotline.

Atlantic City quickly became the Boxing Capital of the East Coast.  Two professional boxing cards a week became the norm and, like a moth drawn to a flame, Diane became a fixture at ringside. “Daddy’s Dream” began to take shape during those countless rounds of competition.  Boxing may have been simply entertainment for the casino patrons, but her trained eye noted that many of the fight cards were one sided, and victory or defeat was far too predictable.  In 1997, at the age of 49, Diane applied for a New Jersey Boxing Promoter’s license. Dee Lee, the promoter, was born.

Dee Lee’s first major event was staged at the Tropicana Casino, the same casino where she had her salon, and what an event it was!  The audacious upstart promoter named the fight card “Ladies Night Out’ and it featured six different Women’s World Title bouts on a single fight card!  Imagine Kathy Collins, Jane Couch, Dierdre Gogarty, Eva Young, Andrea DeShong, Leona Brown, Jill Matthews and Anissa Zamarron all on the same fight card!  “Unthinkable”, said boxing purists.  “Think again”, thought Dee Lee, the imaginative and bold as brass boxing newcomer.  The PPV event sold out the Tropicana Showroom and Dee Lee never looked back.  Her 70+ fight cards read like Gulliver’s Travels and included New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Louisiana, Minnesota and Panama.  She became a household name in the east coast boxing industry and, at one point, staged ten fight cards in a fourteen-month stretch!  The list of champions that fought on her cards is almost a who’s who in women’s boxing.  Names like Cora and Dora Webber, Bonnie Canino, Gina Guidi, Fredia Gibbs and Ann Wolfe are just a few that appeared on her fight cards to showcase their talent.  It’s a simple fact that not every fighter is destined to be a champion, but on a Dee Lee boxing promotion, every fighter is treated with the respect and dignity of a champion.

The list of Dee Lee firsts is astonishing, and the awards and honors she has received are just as impressive.  Those awards and honors include New Jersey Promoter of the Year, Best Undercard Fight of the Year, Best Women’s Fight of the Year, the first ever six Women’s World Title bouts on a single fight card, the first woman to promote an all-women fight card in Louisiana, the first woman to promote a World Title fight in Panama, the first promoter (man or woman) to promote a title fight in Delaware, and the first woman to promote/co-promote a Heavyweight Championship bout aired on HBO (Ray Mercer vs. Wladimir Klitchko).

Though her firsts are many, perhaps the first she is most proud of was establishing the first youth boxing program at The Boys and Girls Club of Vineland.  As a board member of the club, she recognized that the discipline and confidence that can be achieved through boxing can be a tremendous positive influence in a child’s life.  Dee Lee has been inducted into The New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, The Atlantic City Boxing Hall of Fame, and The Cumberland County Women’s Hall of Fame and, in April 2024, she will be inducted into the National Boxing Hall of Fame.