Rankings and momentum.
A zombie is a reanimated dead body. Stipe wasn't reanimated, he was just dead, so no one would be calling him a zombie yet.
You see how those rankings you posted had other names on them? And you're masturbating over the number 2, even though he should have been deranked for inactivity if he were anyone else? But the names at 3 and 4 were both on streaks, each with more ranked wins than Stipe even had wins over the current roster, and they were booked to fight the very next month. That's what some people would call an eliminator in a normal division.