Joe Massino and John Gotti had a long friendship due to them both operating in Queens, being involved in truck, cargo hijackings, gambling, and book makings. A lot of mobsters gamble and that is how a lot of them get to know each other, especially if two members are heavy bettors who belong to two different families, or in the same line of work such as hijacking which both Massino and Gotti were. Massino picked Gotti over DeMeo, cause the two were great friends climbing the ranks of LCN, Joe might have have known DeMeo, but he trusted Gotti cause Gotti was close to Dellacroce the Gambino underboss at the time and would have sent the other New York families a clear message that the dispute in the Bonannos was over with.

The majority of the mobsters in the Colombo and Gambino crime families were supporting the Rastelli fraction as the boss of the Bonannos', The Genovese crime family was Supporting Indelicato faction for boss. The Lucchese crime family is the only New York family to not take a side in the dispute, that is not to say that members of that family were not taking a side in the Bonanno dispute, but officially the Lucchese were the only family of the four that stayed out of the Bonanno family feud.