The men's freestyle bantamweight competition at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome took place from 1 to 6 September at the Basilica of Maxentius.

[1] Bantamweight was the second-lightest category, including wrestlers weighing 52 to 57 kilograms (114.6 to 125.7 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, though adjusted the point values slightly.

The medal round concept, used in 1952 and 1956 requiring a round-robin amongst the medalists even if one or more finished a round with enough points for elimination, was used only if exactly three wrestlers remained after a round—if two competitors remained, they faced off head-to-head; if only one, he was the gold medalist.

Zalev and Trojanowski had already faced each other, so each wrestled against McCann—who won both bouts to secure the gold medal.