The events of the season 7 opener are burned into the memories of The Walking Dead fans forever, with Negan brutally murdering two fan favorite characters. The first, of course, was Abraham, who met his fate with characteristic bravery, telling the Savior leader to “suck my nuts” before he was faced with the nasty end of Lucille. Negan wasn’t able to break the big man’s spirit, then, and – according to actor Michael Cudlitz – things could’ve gone very differently if Negan and Abraham faced off one-on-one instead.
While speaking on the Dead Talk Live podcast, Cudlitz – who’s still part of TWD, having directed many episodes in subsequent seasons – was asked if he thinks his character would’ve been able to kill Negan if he had survived the season 7 opener. Despite admitting that he finds these sort of “what if” questions difficult to answer, Cudlitz believes he could’ve done it.
“Everyone always asks the ‘what if,’ and it’s difficult to do the ‘what if,'” Cudlitz said. “It’s like, ‘Well, would Daryl kill Negan?’ Now look what’s happened — everything twists and shifts. I don’t know. I think if it was one-on-one he would take him out, if all things being equal and all things being fair.”
He then went on to use the fight between Daryl and Whisperer deputy Beta in season 9 as an example of how you can never tell how these confrontations will go. Given his size, Beta should’ve been a shoe-in to best Norman Reedus’ character, but Daryl was able to turn the tables on his opponent and shove him down an elevator shaft.
“You look at the Beta fight with Daryl. You don’t know how that’s going to wind up, and he gets the upper hand on him, but things being as they are, Beta’s huge,” Cudlitz said. “So it’s not even a slam or talking sh-t about Norman to say Beta would probably win. But Daryl’s just a badass who is completely unpredictable, so you never know.”
Overall, though, Cudlitz explained that he’s not too much of a fan of wondering what would’ve happened if Abraham had lived, as to him, his character died a heroic death which meant something.
“I don’t like to play the ‘what if’ game because you always go, ‘Oh yeah, I would have kicked his ass and I’d have changed the whole thing.’ Well, no, I didn’t,” he added. “I chose to give myself for the group and hopefully save some lives. Abraham was able to do one last selfless thing to hopefully secure the safety of the people that he loved, and his family.”
All these years after killing Abraham (and Glenn), Negan is now something of a changed man and is trying to prove this to the likes of Daryl, who unsurprisingly hasn’t quite warmed to him yet. We’ll see what’s next for the former big bad when The Walking Dead airs its season 10 finale sometime later this year.
