Heavyweight, Freestyle (≤100 kilograms), Men

Leri Khabelovi had won the last two World Championships, with his biggest competition his own Soviet teammate, Aravat Sabeyev, the 1989-90 European Champion. Khabelovi was selected to compete in Seoul, which seemed to ensure them a gold medal, but it was not to be. He easily won all his Group A matches and advanced to a final against Romanian Vasile Puşcaşu, who Khabelovi had defeated multiple times, most recently in the 1987 World and European finals. Puşcaşu had won a bronze medal in the Eastern Bloc-boycott depleted competition at the Los Angeles Olympics, but he had never won a major international. The final match was scoreless until Puşcaşu pulled off a single-leg takedown with only 19 seconds remaining to win the gold medal. Khabelovi would continue to win international titles and returned in 1992 at Barcelona, where he finally got his Olympic gold. Sabeyev would get to compete at the Olympics, but would wait until 1996 when he won a bronze medal in Atlanta.