This freestyle wrestling competition consists of a single-elimination tournament, with a repechage used to determine the winner of two bronze medals. The two finalists face off for gold and silver medals. Each wrestler who loses to one of the two finalists moves into the repechage, culminating in a pair of bronze medal matches featuring the semifinal losers each facing the remaining repechage opponent from their half of the bracket.
Khasanboy Rakhimov of Uzbekistan originally won the bronze medal, but was disqualified after he tested positive for doping. Deng Zhiwei was raised to third and took the bronze medal. Badzha Khutaba from Syria who originally finished 5th also failed the doping test, their Olympic quotas were transferred to Yadollah Mohebbi of Iran and Egzon Shala of Kosovo.
