Nah - Sammy just couldn't do the time , all that gotti bad mouthing was BS , both were getting life and would likely never see each other again anyway . Sammy never really did a long bid before and like a lot of people couldn't hack it .
Say what u want about Joey but he is way more of a wise guy then Phil would ever be . Phil couldn't hack it while Joey lives it - always
Meh, easy to say but like it or not, Nicky and Phil burned so bright in the late 70s and 80s that they simply got caught up with due to the insane amount of resources and political effort that the G deployed against the entrenched LCN back then. You can't deny Joey is a true wiseguy but I think Phil had a lot more smarts.
As for OP question...
I don't know tbh...
Being off the streets for that long surely would erode his connections on the streets, but I think his best bet would have been to join Nicky Jr under the Lucchese umbrella(ofc implying he managed to stay out of jail), and assemble a crew to muscle back into AC, and eventually maybe make some headway in philly with the help of the old Scarfo guys, and eventually manage to reactivate Scarfo senior as a powerful NJ-based Lucchese IP Capo, from there who gives a crap about what "skinny Joey" does while he's smothered by the FBI for the rest of his life? All the satellites mobs are pretty much on the ropes and have been for a decade or two now, if LCN survives in any capacity it's going to be from NYC/Chicago outward, not from south philly.
/end novel
