Tommy “Tiny” Lister Played a Wrestler, For Real Lister achieved his greatest fame on the big screen, but had an oversized impact during professional wrestling’s most colorful and muscle-obsessed era. Tommy “Tiny” Lister, a glowering cinematic powerhouse who loomed and scowled larger than life throughout so many of our childhoods, died earlier this month at the age of 62. Lister was best known as an actor, associated most closely with the role of “Deebo” in the first two films of Ice Cube’s Friday movie trilogy, but he landed his highest profile roles only after scoring a big break playing the wrestling antagonist opposite Hulk Hogan in the Vince McMahon-produced campy 1989 box office flop No Holds Barred. In an era characterized by cartoonish theatrics and muscular excess, Lister, playing the wrestler “Zeus,” ended up with a short if memorable career as the “real” Zeus, bent on avenging himself against Hogan for overshadowing him in the movie. It was, in some ways, the performance of a lifetime, and he played it to the hilt.