Probably the most important section of the game is the booking screen. This is where you put together the shows that your fans will see. There are two separate booking screens: one for television, and one for large events. The difference is that you have fewer matches at large events, can create dark matches (matches not shown on camera, but just for the benefit of the live crowd), and can choose special features like booking bands to play at the event in an effort to make it more special. However, the actual booking method is the same for both types.

On the booking sheet you will see several slots. Each one represents one segment of the show, which can either be left blank, or booked as a match, interview or angle. Please note that the number of segments for a TV show depends on the time slot it has been given. A show that is in a graveyard slot will only have a handful of segments available. Very simply, you access the Booking Wizard for a segment by clicking the Book button next to it, and can remove the booking by clicking the Remove button. Once you have booked a segment, a short description will be displayed so that you know what you have booked. You can book a show in any order, but it will always run in a linear way (i.e. starting with the opener and making its way to the main event).

You will notice that down the side of the screen are several buttons, which allow you to quickly view feuds, your roster, who has been set to turn, etc. This is because once you exit the booking screen (i.e. if you wanted to go back and hire a new wrestler), you will lose everything you have booked so far, so make sure you are ready to start the show when you start booking!

Once you go to book a segment you will be taken to the Booking Wizard. Booking consists of a series of steps where you are asked to select information from lists. Once you’ve given all the information needed the Complete Booking Segment button will become enabled, and you can go back to the booking sheet (be warned, people can refuse to co-operate with certain segments, in which case you will have to go back and change the booking!).

The main two match types are 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2, or singles and tag as they’re more commonly known. As these are the base types, you can book these in far more detail than the other matches, you can book what happens after the match, and also you will be required to tell the wrestlers what the purpose of the match is. EWR will give you a selection based on the situation. So if you have set a feud between The Rock and Chris Jericho earlier, and now have Y2J running in to cost Rock a match against Undertaker, you will find Continue Feud as one of the potential purposes. Singles and tag are the most common types of match, and are the most detailed in terms of the analysis that EWR does on the results. So, a wrestler is more likely to benefit from two months of good exposure in singles matches than he is from a year working in throwaway six man tag team bouts.

There are some things you should know about the booking wizard: 

1) Not all matches will be available. If your risk level is low, you may not have access to all of the matches in EWR. In this case, they simply won’t appear in the match type list. 
2) Certain wrestlers won’t appear in all lists. Non-wrestlers won’t be selectable for TV matches (although they can do interviews, participate in angles, and run in), injured or touring wrestlers won’t be there, neither will development deal guys, etc. 
3) On a similar note, you must specifically select run-in as a finish for someone to run down. Although the drop-down menu allows you to select a run-in person at any time, if you select a clean finish, your selection of someone to run in will be ignored.

If for some reason you don’t wish to have an event, you can click the Cancel Event button. This is not to be done lightly, as the fans are already assembled at the arena by this point, so you are going to annoy a lot of people!

Once all the booking is complete, and you have fulfilled the minimum requirements (the red bar at the bottom of the screen tells you how many matches \ segments you must book), the Start Show! button will become available. Once you click this, the show begins, and you get to sit back and watch the show. The report is done in the style of an Internet report, in the past-tense. Down one side you will see the details of the match \ interview \ angle (stipulations, titles, etc), the rating, and (presuming you have a road agent employed) the road agent’s notes, which is a backstage view of the segment telling you things that the commentary didn’t pick up on (like injuries, people working too stiff, etc).

If you are running an interview or angle, the rating is simply a percentage telling you how entertaining the segment was. If you run a match, you get three values; Overall, Crowd Reaction and Match Quality. Crowd reaction is how noisy the crowd were, and how much they were drawn to the drama of the match. Match quality is a rating telling you how good the actual wrestling was. The overall rating is the one which actually counts toward your show’s score, and is the average of the other two values. Therefore, a red hot crowd can compensate for lousy in-ring action (Rock vs Hogan), and similarly, great in-ring action can compensate for no heat (WCW’s cruiserweight division circa 1998). Please note that although the overall rating is an average of the match rating and the crowd rating, other factors can effect this overall rating and so it may end up being higher or lower than expected. One example of this is your announcers. If you have hired really poor announcers, they can actually harm the match for people watching at home. Therefore, even if the match rating was 100% and the crowd was 100%, you may end up with an overall rating of just 85% because your announcers ruined it.

After the final segment, you will be presented with a final overall rating. The higher, the better! Once you’ve clicked OK, you will be taken to a Loading screen, and once that is done, returned to the main screen so that you can see how the show has effected your promotion.