Midget wrestler
Encyclopedia : M : MI : MID : Midget wrestler
A midget wrestler is a midget or person of short stature who competes in professional wrestling. Midget is also a designation given to the 9-10 year old age division in the U.S. Wrestling Association.
Pro Wrestling Illustrated presented a Midget Wrestler of the Year award annually from 1972 to 1976. Notable midget wrestlers include Sky Low Low (Marcel Gauthier) who was the Northern Wrestling Alliance's first World Midget Champion, Little Beaver (Lionel Giroux), Lord Littlebrook, and Fuzzy Cupid, all of whom have been inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Other midget wrestlers include Cowboy Lang and “Wee” Willie Wilson from Georgia, The Haiti Kid, Little Tokyo, Little Brutus, Billy the Kid, and Little Mr. T.. There have been fewer female midget wrestlers, but Diamond Lil, Darling Dagmar, and Princess Little Dove are the best known of them.
Despite the acclaim of some midget wrestlers, midget wrestling is rarely taken as seriously as other forms of professional wrestling, and is thought to be a holdover from earlier wrestling's vaudeville origins, where comedy was as important as athletics, as well as from wrestling's carny origins, where a premium was placed on the visually unusual.
Some folklore has surrounded midget wrestling's heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. One persistent story is that André the Giant once simultaneously wrestled some number (often given as five or six) midget wrestlers.
Competitive midget wrestling declined sharply in the United States in the 1990s, though it remains popular in Mexican wrestling. Midget wrestlers show up in professional wrestling matches in the United States often only as miniature versions of existing wrestling stars, such as Dink the Clown to Doink the Clown, Mini Dust who looked like Goldust, and others.
During its early days in 2002, NWA: Total Nonstop Action featured a "Hardcore Midget" division with such characters as Meatball the Giant Midget. In 2005, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) announced the creation of a new "Juniors" division within their SmackDown! brand, which consisted of wrestlers at or below 5 feet tall. They used mostly Mexican "Mini" wrestlers including Mascarita Sagrada but the division was discontinued in March 2006.
A recent resurgence in the sport can be seen in the Micro Wrestling Federation, a touring group of midget wrestlers and their "wacky roadcrew" that have appeared with Tom Green, Detroit's Bump-N-Uglies, Maury Povich and hundreds of other shows. The popularity of this group has grown with a series of underground videos and internet shorts. This has lead to the hit cable show Living Large. Some of the performers include Meatball, a Heavy Metal Monster midget and real-life roadie, and Bronx Thug a little person boxer/trash talker. The leader is a legit cage fighter that calls himself TOAD. A reality TV show is being filmed and a pay-per-view called DWARF WAR is being set up for 2007.
External links
- [Wrestling Museum] Some pictures and brief biographies of famous midget wrestlers
- [WWE.com - The Juniors Are Coming]
- [Micro Wrestling Foundation] website for The Party Midgets
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