Having a sibling can teach you many things. But in the case of former New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan, the biggest thing he learned from having a twin brother was how to fight. And when Ryan talks about the fights he had with his twin brother and fellow football coach, Rob Ryan, he believes even Mike Tyson would have found it difficult to beat the Ryan brothers.

“I’ve never lost a fight in my life, not because I’m a badass, but because I have a twin brother,” Ryan said on the Glue Guys Podcast. “There’s no fucking way. Mike Tyson would get his ass kicked by the Ryan brothers, and that’s a fact. Every Thanksgiving, we would play with our older brother, and you had to deliver a cheap shot, or I don’t know what the hell you’re doing out there. Only one time we hit somebody into a moving car. So that was, we had to slow it down a little after that.

Rob and Rex were just two years old when their parents divorced and later moved to Ontario with their mother and older brother, Jim. And considering Rex has openly talked about the friendly fights he had with his brother growing up, it only reinforces why their mother eventually sent Rex and his brothers to live with their dad, Buddy Ryan, as teenagers, because they had become too much for a single parent to handle.

While Rex and Rob ultimately followed their dad’s footsteps to become football coaches, competitiveness always remained a part of their upbringing. Rex Ryan, meanwhile, used that toughness during his NFL head coaching career as well. After the Jets hired him as their next head coach ahead of the 2009 season, Ryan led his team to three consecutive wins.

However, those wins were later followed by six losses in the next 7 games. But Ryan had always emphasized having a tough unit, which eventually helped him lead the Jets to the AFC Championship round. During his conversation on the Glue Guys Podcast, Ryan revealed how he knew that he had a tough unit in New York.

“I think the big thing is like the genuine toughness when it gets like, it’s easy to be a f—ing bada– when things are going well until you get hit in the f—ing face. You know, I’m wearing this dude out. All of a sudden, boom, they hit back. Well, when other teams hit back, my f—ing teams continue to hit. That’s when I knew we had a tough team. I think when those situations happen, that’s when you find out about your football team.

“I remember our first year, we win the first three games. So, I’m the f—ing man in New York…Bill Parcells could kiss my a–. I was the f—ing man of New York. Then we go on to lose like seven or eight games or whatever the f–k it was. Then I wasn’t so f—ing smart. But the guy stayed the f—ing course. Like, we played and man, I remember we had to win our last three to get in the playoffs. And you know, I remember purposely telling them that it’s too bad that we’re out of the playoffs because I really thought we had something special. I knew I we had a chance to make the playoffs.”

The Jets went on to win five out of the final six games to make the postseason. After defeating the Cincinnati Bengals and San Diego Chargers, however, Rex Ryan and the Jets lost the AFC title game to the Indianapolis Colts. But it had become evident that Ryan kept a competitive nature with his players, as the former Jets head coach grew up in a competitive household with his twin brother.