He talked such a big game about being close to Vito to the Sicilians he met with only to then be whacked on Vito's orders. So was he just name dropping vito and exaggerating their relationship to impress the sicilians? Or am I overthinking it?
No at one time he was very close to Vito, there is no doubt there and he was speaking the truth about how close he was. Whether he was made or not who knows? I tend to say "no" but it was also well known Vito didn't run his family like a normal Sicilian family operated.
He fell out of favor when Vito went away and Joe Bravo went along with Desjardins as he was close to him as well. I'd say he pulled a Di Maulo and went with the group that was going to take over as the Sicilian's were reeling at that time. Then once Vito got out of prison (I'm pretty sure Bravo was well into Sicily by then) he wanted to meet Bravo and of course Fernandez blew off 2 meetings with Rizzuto and by that point Vito had enough and that was the end of the Joe Bravo story.
