Pashayan also won a gold medal at the 1984 Friendship Games during the Olympic boycott.

Benur Pashayan was born on 13 February 1959 in the village of Azavret within the Akhalkalak region of the Georgian SSR.

He began Greco-Roman wrestling in Yerevan under the direction of Albert Mnatsakanyan and Harutyun Khachatryan.

Having been ranked first in his weight class the past two years, he was the gold medal favorite of the Greco-Roman flyweight (52 kg) division at the 1984 Summer Olympics.

From 1986 to 1989 he was the coach in Soviet Armenia, and in 1989 he graduated from the Armenian State Institute of Physical Culture.