Dustin Rhodes stared dead-eyed into the camera, face devoid of both life and expression as he laid motionless on the mat. Blood trickled down the right side of his face, a shade of red that perfectly matched the face paint that decorated the left.

He'd been in some bad places in a wrestling career that spans more than three decades, sharing the ring with some bad hombres over the years. He fought Roddy Piper in a parking lot and Blacktop Bully in the back of a moving 18-wheeler. But nothing had prepared him for Lance Archer, the monstrous new protege of Jake "The Snake" Roberts who advanced to the finals of the TNT Championship tournament to face Rhodes' brother Cody at Double or Nothing.

The match capped one of the best episodes of wrestling television this year, certainly the finest weekly show in the era of COVID-19. AEW Dynamite opened with a spectacular match between Cody and Darby Allin in the other semifinal and never really lost momentum through Archer's bravura performance to close things out. Dr. Britt Baker and the Inner Circle both provided legitimately funny vignettes, and the Best Friends filled the middle of the show with a truly impressive "no disqualification" match with Jimmy Havoc and Kip Sabian that stole a packed show.

It was a fantastic two hours of wrestling, the culmination of all the lessons learned over the last month of empty-arena shows. It moved quickly, balancing dramatic action with comedic flair, a handful of squash matches serving as a palate cleanser between courses. The show was good enough that you don't have to grade it on a curve or take into account the circumstances that forced it to be filmed and produced the way it was.

This wasn't wrestling that was good despite the empty arena and these uncertain times. This was wrestling that was so good that you forgot about that, lost in the stories unfolding in front of you.

Wrestling in a vacuum can be difficult. The crowd, especially for a promotion like AEW that draws thousands of hugely devoted fans to watch Dynamite live each week, can play an integral role. It provides the passion that many wrestlers draw power from, energizing the performers, which only further inflames the audience—a feedback loop that some nights feels like magic.

Absent that, AEW was forced to improvise. It brought wrestlers out to chant and cheer (and sometimes interfere) bringing life to what might have been dull, by-the-numbers matches. The camera work was adjusted, cutting the angles tighter and tighter each week, making it easy to forget there was no one there.

The wrestlers, too, adjusted their games. With no audience, they eliminated most of the crowd participation spots, speeding up their matches and tightening up their ring work to accommodate for the closer camera.

Luck, as always, played a role. With their regular announce crew unavailable, they tried out a couple of partners for Tony Schiavone, eventually landing on Chris Jericho, who was a revelation. His passion for the show was contagious, and his banter with Schiavone is what most heel announcers think they sound like when they're actually stinking up the joint.

The last month has been unprecedented, testing our resiliency, both as individuals and a people. Barely a year into its existence, AEW both adapted and overcame, setting the industry standard and daring everyone else to keep up.

The TNT Championship tournament exemplified what has generally been the AEW approach to the coronavirus—live audience or not, the promotion was never content to simply produce television to fill quotas and time. It continued to build characters and storylines, making sure the shows mattered.

And, in my house at least, that level of caring was deeply appreciated.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.