Harmison running through a brick wall to chase professional MMA dream

With six finishes in six fights, with not one of them reaching even a third round, he'd seemingly bled the amateur welterweight ranks dry.

The tear through the division has essentially forced his entry into the professional ranks, with his debut to come on Saturday's Hex Fight series card in Melbourne against fellow debutant Dee Samasoni.

It's a move he's long coveted, but the brickie-by-day admits it feels "pretty real" as he prepares to make his first cage walk under truly bright lights.

"I always get to fight week just itching to get in there," Harmison said.

"This time I feel a bit different. To make the pro decision, I've got six wins, six finishes. When I started, I just wanted to prove some things to myself.

"I proved that early on. From that second or third fight I thought 'the next step from here is [going] pro, let's let's make that a goal'. It's been one step at a time but we're here now.

"I'm so keen for the pro debut to see what I can make of it."

Part of the famed Freestyle MMA stable under coach Joe Lopez, Harmison's been a regular training partner of UFC featherweight GOAT Alex Volkanovski, while the build-up to pro outing number one has seen him trading with the likes of future Hall-of-Famer Israel Adesanya, Australia's top welterweight Jack Della Maddalena, and 10-fight UFC veteran Jimmy Crute.

Throwing hands with fighters of that calibre is quite the contrast to throwing bricks around worksites for the self-employed tradie. It doesn't sound all that relaxing either, but it's where Harmison finds his zen.

"This year's been really hard, work for brickies is slowing down," Harmison said.

"I got nothing all of January then three jobs at once, I had to give one away. Then you get a week off, two more jobs at once, nothing's consistent at the moment.

"I've got so many things going on outside of the gym, but it's why I love MMA. It's the most real thing you can do and, in fight week, you're just focused and nothing else matters.

"It's super hard to balance, but I want this more than I want anything else so I'm making it happen. With what's going on in the world, I'm grateful for just trying to diminish whatever problems I think are problems, which they're not in reality.

"And [bricklaying] makes keeping the weight down easier. I haven't been able to put it on, so I've been pretty fit all camp."

Hex Fight Series is one of the premier MMA promotions in the country, and a long way from the Wollongong Wars cards he's headlined as an amateur, but the son of Illawarra Hawks legend Chuck Harmison says he won't be fazed by the big stage.

"Honestly, I don't register that stuff," he said.

"As soon as I get an opponent, I just visualise and see that I've already won the thing. I don't care about venue, place, time, whatever. I've got one thing to do, and that's what I focus on.

"I've always been like that with things in my life. If I get to a certain point where I want something bad enough, I just I don't see anything else other than what that thing is.

"I like to see the venue walk around it before I fight, just just to get it in my head, but that's enough.

"I don't think too much about the opponent. You know who he is, but you've got to do what you do anyway. At Freestyle, there's no real training for one guy, we all just level up everywhere together."

While the juggle between his dream job and 'real' job can be a tough one, it helps that his partner Amena is also all-in on the fight game, now coming off her fourth win as a pro three weeks ago.

While it can be a double-edged sword, with at least one partner in a perpetual state of dreaded weight cutting, Harmison says being in sync on the home front is a major boost.

"It'd be pretty hard if you didn't have an understanding partner because we've both done it and know what it takes," Harmison said.

"We get to celebrate together, go from cutting weight to bingeing, just little little wins along the way. It's all about little stuff, but we also know when the moods are down.

"Sometimes it overlaps. She just fought three weeks ago and won, now I'm fighting three weeks after, so we haven't celebrated because I'm still cutting weight and things like that.

"But it's definitely pretty cool to both be doing it. She's locked in full time now, so hopefully she can make something of that. Now I'm starting out and we'll see what we can do with it."