Since sumo moved to its current 15-bout tournament schedule in 1939, the lowest score that has ever been good enough to lift the Emperor’s Cup is 11 wins and four losses.
Incredibly, over the 84 years since that expansion, there has only been a single tournament in which the makuuchi division champion has failed to win at least 12 fights over the course of 15 days, not including the truncated tournaments at the end of, and immediately following, World War II.
Of course, Musashimaru and Harumafuji took the top division title in November 1996 and September 2017, respectively, with 11-4 records, but both men also won additional playoff bouts during those tournaments.