Straight away, World Championship Wrestling needed to streamline their product in 2001. Monday Nitro was struggling itself, and that was the flagship show, so there was really no need for programs like Thunder. The long-running WCW Saturday Night has already been cancelled in August, 2000, Thunder and the woefully inept WorldWide needed to follow suit. Incredibly, WorldWide continued to be broadcast until May, 2001 in the United Kingdom. This is down to the fact that the show was normally taped well in advance, so episodes could continue to air. Neither Thunder nor WorldWide were particularly worth watching in 2001, and hadn't been for quite some time. Deleting them from schedules would have actually helped WCW, because the shows were often a detriment to the product. WorldWide, with cartoon-like sound effects and graphics to mask weapons shots, was comical. Thunder had been ill-wanted by Eric Bischoff to begin with in 1998, so the sole focus in 2001 would have had to have been on re-establishing Nitro as must-see TV