Lightweight, Greco-Roman (≤60 kg), Men

Because FILA still refused to seed wrestling draws, many of the favorites met in early rounds. Armenian-born Bulgarian Armen Nazaryan, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in 1996 and 2000, met the 2007 World Champion, Georgian Davit Bedinadze, in the first round and eliminated him. Nazaryan then defeated Makoto Sasamoto of Japan, the 2007 World silver medalist, taking three periods to win. Nazaryan then lost to Azerbaijani Vitaliy Rəhimov, however, the 2005 European Champion, and was eliminated. Defending champion Jeong Ji-Hyeon of Korea also lost in the quarter-finals, going out against Kazakh Nurbakyt Tengizbayev, who then lost to Rəhimov. The final came down to Rəhimov against 19-year-old Russian Islam-Beka Albiyev, bronze medalist at the 2007 World Cup. Albiyev won fairly easily, taking two straight periods without giving up a point, and at 19 years, 227 days, became the youngest Olympic gold medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling, and the second youngest male gold medalist in Olympic wrestling, after Yugoslav Macedonian Šaban Trstena, who was six days younger in 1984. All four medalists were from former Soviet republics.

That was how the event and the results seemed to have ended. In 2015, however, the IOC began re-testing samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, using newer, more advanced testing techniques, in an effort to find those who had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), but in whom it could not be detected at the time of those Olympics. This was one of the many events affected.

In November 2016, Vitaliy Rəhimov (AZE) was revealed to have a positive test for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone), and was disqualified, losing his silver medal. Nurbakyt Tengizbayev of Kazakhstan was advanced to the silver medal, and Sheng Jiang of China was advanced to the bronze medal.