Every benchmark is a cheat and not a real-world problem.
I also thought their benchmark is a cheat. But it is not. It is testing exactly what the benchmark was testing in that scenario. That is why TechEmpower Benchmark suite is so powerful. It uses different web server scenarios (connection, JSON parsing, database connections, ...). The different test case implementation .NET and others have are making sure no other factor is influencing this. For example: when you benchmark connections why dealing with MVC, validation and database connections.
It is not .NET who cheats, it is the others who do not properly isolate the tested performance aspect.
And to make the comparison a bit more real and day-to-day applicable, you need to pick the right framework configuration (like aspcore-mw @ 80% / aspcore-mvc @ 37%) and compare with other reasonable scenarios (like express @ 1% / spring @ 2% / quarkus @ 8%). Both are then far of the top 10 ten list but still comparable. The top 10 combinations are for cases where developer productivity does not matter but throughput is the key (e.g. a DoH resolver or a system like a Cache / Database).