Merlino's in prison until 1992. By the time he gets out Michael Ciancaglini has survived an attempt on his life because their crew had killed Felix Bocchino, a made member working for Stanfa. Stanfa makes Merlino and Ciancaglini in September of that year in the hope that it would de-escalate the situation or, at the least, that he can keep them close enough to make killing them easier. Then in 1993 Ciancaglini orders the hit on his brother Joey Chang, who by that point was Stanfa's underboss, because he blamed him for the attempt on his life a year earlier. Joey Chang survives, the Merlino group tries to blame the shooting on Biagio Adornetto but Stanfa eventually figures it out. He gets caught on tape talking about how he wants to lure Merlino, Ciancaglini and Gaeton Lucibello to a meeting to kill them. Law enforcement obviously has to then warn the trio about the plots on their lives and they don't come in. So Stanfa starts sending out hit teams, they eventually catch up with Merlino and Ciancaglini, Ciancaglini is killed and then the war really breaks out.

As far as being made goes, the Merlino guys didn't really care. By 1993 Merlino was going around saying that he was the underboss and Michael Ciancaglini was the boss. Their idea was they would make themselves if they had to and, to an extent, they did. When Merlino went to prison in 1993 for parole violation he left Steve Mazzone in charge of the crew even though he was just an associate and they had made guys with them at that point (Lucibello and, to a lesser extent, Ronald Turchi). Merlino was still only a soldier when he made Natale and put him in as boss. Merlino also likely made Mazzone, George Borgesi, Marty Angelina and Mike Lancellotti prior to that.