A closer look at the fight between Tommy Vext and Dino Cazares

As many of you know, I posted a news item on Monday July 14 that was pieced together from various accounts from people who were backstage at Mayhem Fest in San Bernardino when a fight broke out between Dino Cazares and Tommy Vext. After about 8 hours, I removed the news item as the comments were becoming very divisive, and many of the commenter's were threatening bodily harm to Tommy Vext, Dino Cazares, and Jennifer Cazares. Normally I would just ignore people's comments, however after Dimebag was killed by an enraged and crazed fan, I no longer will dismiss comments threatening the life of people. With that being said, I will yet again weigh in on what has been said by both sides and try to bring some clarity to the fans.

We all read about the incident which lead to Tommy Vext being fired or quitting (depends who you talk to) Divine Heresy in April of 2008. The short version was things weren't going Tommy Vext's way on stage in NY, he told the band he only wanted to play one more song and not finish the bands complete set. Dino and the rest of the guys wanted to continue playing, words were exchanged and Tommy shoved Dino to the ground.

Fast Forward to July 13, 2008 at the San Bernadino, CA Mayhem Festival. Dino and his wife Jennifer Cazares were "having a great time with awesome friends backstage. Out of nowhere comes a beer and fist straight to my face (so horrifying and painful)" stated Jennifer in a blog post. A day later on the phone, Jen stated to me that "it was meant for Dino and he did connect with Dino, but he got me at the very end of the punch." As I stated in my first post, Tommy Vext is a big dude and taking a punch from him would leave major swelling and bruises. However, Tommy did throw the first punch and was the aggressor in the fight. It is common courtesy if you are going to throw blows with someone, make sure bystanders are out of the way. The fact remains, you still hit Jen. It might have been unintentional, but she shouldn't have been touched. I understand that Jen was hit, but the punch wasn't meant for Jennifer as a reader of her post is led to believe.

Another issue I had was with the injuries on Jens legs. The bruises are massive in size and look awful. I did not believe they were consistent with someone punching or kicking. Nowhere in Jen's account did she state they might not have been caused by Tommy Vext. Of course I asked. Jennifer replied "I sustained most of my injuries from the Live Nation security guards." This seems more consistent with her injuries. It looks like she was roughed up badly and we all know how overly aggressive concert security can be at times. Of course none of this would have happened had the fight never started in the first place.

People were very quick to condemn Tommy Vext or Dino Cazares for the fight. It is hard to see Tommy's side as he was the aggressor back in April. Some people won't take Dino's side as they might not like the ways he conducts business. The truth be told, it takes two to fight. What is unfortunate is the person who shouldn't have been involved was involved and suffered the most injuries.

Hopefully at this point the two sides can avoid each other, although I doubt that will happen as both camps reside in Los Angeles. Most likely this will be another matter for the courts.


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Tags:  Jennifer Cazares, Dino Cazares, Tommy Vext, fight, Divine Heresy

jason fisher    July 18, 2008