when merlino was shot on the street with cianglini, cianglini died and merlino survived but how would the philly mob be like if they have had successfully killed merlino that day and where would have stanfa be at today if these things happened the way it suppossed to been.

stanfa still would have taken down since he spilling his guts in avena's office

Stanfa, whit all his talk about Sicily, old-school, and whatnot sure did a terrible job.

Yeah we've talked about his ineffectualities on this board before. Definitely check out the archives, there's been some cool threads on it.

but what if stanfa didn't talk in avenas office at all.

Would of been interesting. Everyone seems to think Merlino wiped out the Stanfa side but it was the feds not Joey Merlino who took Stanfa and company off the street. Merlino was lucky Stanfa and his guys were the most inept bunch of mobguys in phlly history. The bomb that never went off, getting shot in the ass etc. Merlino was lucky it was Stanfa and not real killers like the old Scarfo guys trying to whack him out. Joey has balls but i think the guy is over rated myself. He's also lucky the Genovese didn't whack him out when he told them to come to philly if they wanted a meeting. If the Genovese really wanted Joey gone, he'd be long gone by now and all the balls in the world wouldn't have saved him. Lets face it compared to the Genovese todays philly guys are minor league at best.They haven't been a real force in the area since Scarfo went down. They rule south philly, thats it.

Then John Stanfa would have went down as the 2nd greatest mob boss ever in Philly history. Right behind Ralph Natale.

Ain't it the truth.

the philly mob was doomed pretty much when bruno was killed. Although i think Phil Testa would have made a good boss if he lived longer

Ralph Natale would never have been in a position of power if it weren't for Joey Merlino

Even then, he was later shown to be pretty much a stooge. A "lightning rod" that was kept in the dark about most real shit. In his head, of course, he was Don fuckin' Corleone.

I myself have wondered before how Chicken Man Testa's tenure would have panned out if he hadn't been blown up by a nail bomb. He seems to have been an otherwise respected guy, and to my knowledge is the only mobster Springsteen referenced in song. I may be wrong on this. The Boss was from NJ, after all, and has a pretty large body of work.

Testa was a violent guy himself. Him and Scarfo were close for years. That should tell you something about testa right there. There would of been a violent purge under Testa. After all it was Testa and Scarfo who almost went to war against Bruno in the late 1970's over local 54 i believe it was. Testa and Scarfo wanted Frank Gerace in there and Bruno wanted Ralph Natale to lead the local. There was a sitdown where Bruno told them to back off and they didn't. They went against Bruno and still backed Gerace. Scarfo even told Gerace not to report to Bruno just to scarfo himself. Only thing that stopped them was Natale got locked up on drug charges and was taken out of the picture. Union enforcer Charlie Allen testified at Natales trial that Natale and Long John Martorano told him to stock pile guns for them because of a possible war coming between 2 factions of the Bruno family. Those 2 factions were Bruno against Testa/Scarfo. I think if Tony Bannana's didn't take Bruno out someone else soon would of made a move on him. Guys were getting fed up with not being allowed to earn from drugs and also over letting AC become an open city.

Bruno lined his pockets with drug money from the Cherry Hill Gambino brothers and from Long John Martorano's meth racket yet wouldn't let the other made guys in the family earn from it. He was a hypocrite just like Big Paul was in Ny saying he was against drugs while having many guys dealing in junk including Conte and John Gambino who was one of the biggest junk dealers in the country.

Why was Testa killed?

Pretty much the same reason why Bruno was killed. Pete Cassella and Frank narducci planned to kill testa this way pete would be the boss then a few years down the line frank said he would pay pete a large amoun to retire so he could be the boss. So it seemed like Narducci was the instigator in the whole plot to kill Testa