The 2023 edition, however, did not take place as the qualification tournament for the 2024 Summer Olympics was not officially recognized by the FIVB as a World Cup.

The most recent edition of the competition involved twelve teams, including the automatically qualifying host nation Japan, competing in the tournament phase for the title at venues within the host nation over a period of about two weeks.

The World Cup (with the exception of the 2019 edition) acts as the first qualification event for the following year's Olympic Games with the top two teams qualifying.

Instead of letting a consolidated event disappear for lack of interest, the FIVB decided to change its format in 1991: it would be held in the year preceding, and not following, the Olympic Games; and it would be considered a first international Olympic qualification tournament, granting the winners a direct berth in the games.

The possibility of securing an early berth for the Olympic Games, thus avoiding extraneous and in some cases tight continental qualification procedures, became a consistent motivation for the national federations to participate in the World Cup.

[2] Russia (considered as the inheritors of the records of the former Soviet Union), Brazil and United States are the only teams that have won the Men's World Cup more than once.

With the competition now set as a qualifying event for the Olympic Games, the Soviet Union, led by Dmitri Fomin won the title in 1991, at the brink of dissolution.