Five Types of Wiseguys

Basically I look at it as there's four or five types of wiseguy - there's your regular street guy, who is basically your average Joe Brooklyn guy, he's not a hothead nut or killer, he just happens to be a made guy - someone like Sonny Black. Salt of the Earth type of wiseguy. Then there's your fuckin psycho - someone like the Iceman or Roy DeMeo. The guy you go to for extraodinary measures, make people disappear. Then there's the punk street guys like John Gotti and in fiction, Paulie Gualtieri - hotheads but not total nutjobs. Then there's your pure white collar guys like Paul. Then there's guys who bridge both worlds like Frank DeCicco

Anyone agree with my summation of it?

Earners and tough guys. That's what it comes down to. There are varying degrees of earners and varying degrees of tough guys. Sometimes you'll get a combination of both.


By the way, nobody who knows anything about the Mafia should believe a word that comes out of the Iceman's mouth.

wot? the iceman movie said its a true story, whats your problem bro??

Hehe, that and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Well you can include brokester as a type of wiseguy. In fact I'd guess close to half of the mob are brokesters now a days.I mean there are almost zero hits now a days so you can't make a living anymore being a hitter. Need more then that. Unfortunate what Gotti did to Cosa Nostra, and his stupid family just don't get it. This upcoming movie, like his egotistical lawyer once said about Gottis indictment belongs in the trash. Directed by Kevin Connolly....yeah, no. Especially getting a nobody from Sopranos to play Sammy just because he's Juniors friend.

Brokesters generally fall under "tough guys." If they had no marketable skills whatsoever, they wouldn't have been 'made' in the first place.

And when I said "tough guy" I did not mean someone whose sole job is to be a hitter. That would be ridiculous. I meant guys that shake down debtors for more established loansharks, break windows, slash tires, put the squeeze on stockbrokers. Guys like that are tough guys, as opposed to earners. Take the Colombos, for instance. You've got guys like Nicky Rizzo, Ralph Scopo Jr., Ralph Lombardo, that are earners who take in a lot of money from loansharking, unions, gambling. Then you've got the tough guys like Fat Larry Sessa, Fat Danny Capaldo, Big Anthony Russo, Joey Caves, who crack heads and aren't packing a lot of heat in the brains department. Here's what James Tartaglione said in 2003:
"There's people that go out there, just have a knack for earning money. They know how to put businesses together, and they are just good at what they do, as far as business. Then you've got those tough guys that could go out and kill somebody and do whatever they have to do."

Most mob guys are like gotti in many ways, you would be surprised. If gotti was around today he would probably hold meetings under water and make all his men be licensed scuba divers.
DeMeo was no different than jimmy burke, paul vario, or some others. He killed his weakest links. Demeo’s problem was coke mixed with hanging with a bunch of young guys. I never met him or any of the others i mentioned.
Your basic wiseguy is always looking for an angle or at least thats how they used to be. Many i knew were involved with drugs and robberies, aside from gambling. Shylocking was always big.
Most guys today are bookies and may sell pills or week. I knew one guy who made a lot of money selling fireworks, im not kidding.

Yes many toughs make no $. Which is why they have to use violence which can send them away forever. But here were plenty of huge earners who were tough guys. Tony Mirra. Roy DeMeo. Tommy Karate. Gravano. Madonna/Crea (may be stretching it but any boss willing to order brazen murders in the 2010s is a tough)

I guess it's easier to say most brokesters are heavies and most big earner toughs are mainly drug dealers.

I don't think Iceman was a wiseguy at all. He was a killer but I think the only confirmed mob connection was when he bought a gun off of the DeMeo crew.

These examples are from the modern day Colombos:
There are earners who are certainly NOT tough. Like Ralph Scopo Jr., Angelo Spata (to an extent).
There are earners who ARE tough, like Dino Calabro, Big Anthony Russo, Tommy Petrizzo.
And there are tough guys who are NOT earners (not necessarily brokesters however), like Fat Larry Sessa, Joseph Monteleone.

Iceman was not close to the LCN at all, although he may have done a bit of work for them. It's their call whether he was 'tight' with them, not his. Kuklinski was very independent, but he was also a big bullshitter and odd-ball. He was in the same prison as his brother and they hardly spoke to each other.