In view of the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, the 1995 World Judo Championships in Chiba, Japan constituted an obligatory preparatory stage to participate in the American Olympics. A good performance being a great step towards an Olympic medal, David Douillet was planning to defend his world title gained two years earlier in Canada. But this time, he competed at the same time in his weight class (heavyweight, in +95 kg) and in the open category (a category without weight limit). In the first, the Frenchman made a display of his class, by winning each of his fights by "ippon". Having beaten the Japanese quadruple world champion Naoya Ogawa, then the Spaniard Ernesto Pérez in the semi-final, he finally triumphed over the German Frank Möller by "ippon", after less than 2 minutes of fighting, and retained his title.