5 female fighters destined for the UFC

The UFC's women's divisions need new faces, and luckily, a pair of its affiliates boast a bevy of talent primed for a leap to the Octagon.

Feeder promotion Legacy Fighting Alliance and all-female outfit Invicta FC have been regularly supplying the UFC with promising fighters, and with the top guild's strawweight and bantamweight contingents lacking both depth and fringe contenders - in addition to a still-barren featherweight division - there's no time like the present to dip back into the old wells and bring the following handful into the fold:

Tonya Evinger

What more does Tonya Evinger have to do to get the call?

Since Raquel Pennington kept her from getting into the "TUF 18" house in 2013, "Triple Threat" has gone undefeated in seven bouts under the Invicta banner, winning all but two by stoppage. As if her carnage-wreaking run didn't make a strong enough case for a UFC roster spot, Evinger has also dispatched two of its latest female signings in Cindy Dandois and Irene Aldana.

The 35-year-old finished Aldana by fourth-round TKO to win Invicta's bantamweight strap in July 2015, and after a controversial loss to Yana Kunitskaya was overturned to a no-contest, she submitted the Russian in a rematch on Saturday to erase any doubts over her championship-caliber mettle.

Livia Renata Souza

Evinger may have silenced some naysayers at Invicta FC 22, but it was Livia Renata Souza that made the boldest statement in Kansas City.

After losing the promotion's strawweight strap to recent defector Angela Hill in a razor-close split decision last May, "Livinha" got her confidence back with a drubbing of Ayaka Hamasaki that lasted all of 101 seconds. Armed with sneaky punching power, a deadly ground game, and a trio of stoppages in just four Invicta bouts, the 26-year-old would make a welcome addition to the UFC's 115-pound class, where non-stop-action fighters of her ilk are a rarity and a rematch with Hill awaits.

Yana Kunitskaya

Fighters rarely emerge from a stoppage loss with their stock raised, but Kunitsakaya did just that in her rematch with Evinger.

The 27-year-old joined Invicta late last year with seven knockouts in nine career wins, but proved just as deadly on the mat as she is on her feet on Saturday, trapping Evinger in an airtight guillotine and transitioning from a heel hook to a kneebar before ultimately tapping to a rear-naked choke late in Round 2.

Having fought exclusively abroad before Invicta brought her stateside, Kunitskaya is still an enigma across the Pacific, but as long as she keeps rounding out her game under the Shannon Knapp-led outfit, it won't be long before Sean Shelby comes calling.

Mackenzie Dern

It's not a matter of if, but when Mackenzie Dern leaves the LFA for the Octagon.

The 23-year-old jiu-jitsu virtuoso remains a relative neophyte by MMA standards, but her perfect 3-0 record, otherworldly submission skills, and a social media following several hundred thousand fans deep have already put her on UFC president Dana White's radar.

Dern's weight-management issues may stand in the way of a move to the world's leading promotion, but if she can find a way to consistently make the strawweight limit - or if the UFC heeds its roster's words and invests in a flyweight division - her designs of gracing the big stage will soon come to fruition.

Megan Anderson

Megan Anderson's road to the UFC will be a slow but sure one.

The 27-year-old's ambitions of joining the promotion just took a backseat, as she was promoted from interim to undisputed Invicta featherweight champion on Saturday, thanks in part to the recently departed Cris Cyborg. Only three years and change into her MMA career, the Aussie's push up the pyramid will allow her to further sharpen her skills and build on her four-fight knockout streak, and assuming the UFC didn't create its featherweight division on impulse, her growth should be rewarded by the promotion, which has yet to sign any natural 145-pounders to join Cyborg in the Octagon.