Welterweight, Greco-Roman (≤67 kg), Men

The finalists in the Greco-Roman welterweight came as a surprise to most people. Iranian Saeid Esmaeili and Ukrainian Parviz Nasibov were not counted among the potential medalists. However, the 21-year-old Esmaeili had won at both the Asian championships earlier in the year and the World Junior Championships in the 60 kg class in 2022, but had just moved up to the senior level and never competed in a World championship. His opponent Parviz Nasibov, born in Azerbeijan, was much more experienced. and was a silver medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, where he was a surprise finalist after being unseeded. However, at the World championships, he never even came close to a medal.

Nasibov had to endure tight matches in the quarter- and semi-finals. Firstly, he defeated Amantur Ismailov from Kyrgyzstan with a 7-6 result on points, and subsequently drew 3-3 against top-seeded Azerbaijani Həsrət Cəfərov. Scoring the only point in the second period, Nasibov was eventually declared the winner.

Esmaeili eliminated the #2 and #3 seededs, Luis Alberto Orta from Cuba and Slavik Galstyan from Armenia. Esmaeili won the bouts by superiority and a wide margin, respectively. As the winner of the Pan American Games and the World Championships in 2023, both in the 67 kg class, and a Tokyo Olympics 2020 bronze medalist, Orta had a much longer list of achievements than Galstyan. The pre-Olympic favorites, Cəfərov and Orta, who met Galstyan, went on to win their bronze medal matches.

The final turned out to be a close contest. Nasibov went into the break after the first period with a 3-0 lead, but Esmaeili came back to score six points in the second period, with the Ukrainian adding only two more points after a rejected challenge.