I think what makes this interesting is that during Gambino's reign as boss of his family, 1957 to 1976, we have a period of time for the Genoveses where we don't know a whole lot. Hell, Lombardo was a boss for more than ten years and we still don't know a lot more about him now than we did thirty years ago.

The Gambinos have almost always had more soldiers and made more money, but the Genoveses have traditionally controlled the best rackets, have had a tighter organizational structure and have arguably generated the most respect from the rest of the Five Families. None of the other families messed with the Genoveses. As someone stated earlier, Gotti knew Chin was behind the bombing that killed his underboss and someone with as much balls as John knew that retaliating against the Genoveses would bring hell down on the Gambinos.