The men's freestyle lightweight competition at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne took place from 28 November to 1 December at the Royal Exhibition Building.

[1] Lightweight was the fourth-lightest category, including wrestlers weighing 62 to 67 kilograms (137 to 148 lb).

[2] This freestyle wrestling competition continued to use the "bad points" elimination system introduced at the 1928 Summer Olympics for Greco-Roman and at the 1932 Summer Olympics for freestyle wrestling, as modified in 1952 (adding medal rounds and making all losses worth 3 points—from 1936 to 1948 losses by split decision only cost 2).

Habibi also defeated Bestayev, taking the gold medal with a 2–0 record against the other medalists.

Kasahara never faced Bestayev; it is unclear how the silver and bronze medals were decided.