At the time of its cancellation, WorldWide was the longest-running, uninterrupted weekly syndicated show of any kind on the air in the United States.

The show began in 1975 as Wide World Wrestling, a syndicated one-hour program produced by Charlotte, North Carolina–based Jim Crockett Promotions.

In the summer of 1981, WRAL-TV opted not to renew its contract with JCP, citing that it needed the studio space to produce a new local version of PM Magazine.

David Crockett left his position as Bob Caudle's color commentator on Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling to take over play-by-play duties on World Wide.

Not pleased with the studio situation, Crockett began to make plans to rectify matters and by July 1983, had moved his tapings out of WPCQ-TV and into major arenas, buying a mobile TV truck for $1 million and hiring his own crew.

After the sale of JCP's wrestling assets to Turner Broadcasting in 1988, World Wide Wrestling went through a revolving series of announcing teams and included at various times such names as Schiavone, Jim Ross, Gordon Solie, Lance Russell, Chris Cruise, Terry Funk, Dutch Mantell, Ole Anderson, Jesse "The Body" Ventura, Scott Hudson, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Larry Zbyszko.

On January 23, 1999, the WorldWide exclusive matches were moved out of Orlando and began being taped with WCW Saturday Night, which left its base in Atlanta in 1996 and had become a traveling show.

[1] WorldWide was cancelled along with Monday Nitro and Thunder the day before the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) purchased WCW's tape library and intellectual property.

Up until 2019 (when AEW Dynamite started airing on ITV4 and Channel 5 started showing highlights of WWE Raw and SmackDown), WCW WorldWide was one of only two American wrestling shows (the other being Sunday Night Heat on Channel 4) to have had a regular slot on UK terrestrial television, having appeared on two different over the air networks during its lifetime.

Beginning in 1991, WCW WorldWide was broadcast in the UK on the ITV network originally overnight at 1 or 2 a.m. alongside other U.S. imports such as American Gladiators and America's Top Ten.

In order to keep the more extreme action suitable for a pre-watershed audience any attacks with weapons such as steel chairs were comically covered over with large, cartoonish effects with "BLAM!"