I bought Super Mario World on WiiU and I remember in the SNES version of Super Mario World, taking damage as Caped Mario/Fire Mario would return you to Super Mario, not small Mario.
The WiiU version is the US version. Was this something in the PAL only version?
Best Answer
This is a bit of a weird topic, because what exactly happens to Mario upon taking damage with a power-up has indeed changed across different releases of games. I found this reference on the Super Mario Wiki page of Super Mario Bros. 3:
So there are two behaviours here:
This video I found seems to confirm that, yes, you get pushed all the way back to Small upon taking damage with a Cape. And I see no indication on the wiki's SMW page that any regional differences changed the system.