Teenage Canberra boxer Adrian Farquhar has just flipped the script.

His father Bobby travelled the world as a ballet dancer and Adrian looked like he would go down a similar path.

A sprinter in his younger years, Farquhar was being shopped around to different dance schools by his father but "it just wasn't [his] thing".

Quite small for his age, Farquhar wanted to build up some upper body strength to compete with the boys he was racing against, so he did just one thing.

"I just walked into a boxing gym and started taking classes," Farquhar said.

"I had my first fight and I just started training more and from then on I loved it."

The 18-year-old has since racked up 36 fights for 30 wins, and he is about to take up a professional boxing contract in Dublin, Ireland.

He has been a regular for the ACT at national championship tournaments, and went to Ireland early in 2016 to see how he held up "against the big boys".

Farquhar returned home with four wins and a draw from five fights, and before long a professional contract offer came calling.

Farquhar is looking at spending three years overseas, which means his budding modelling career might have to be put on hold for a little while.

Bobby Farquhar has been running an acting school for about 20 years and his resume includes parts on British shows EastEnders and The Bill, and a cameo role on Home and Away.

Every now and then Adrian Farquhar would "hop in and do the odd bit", which progressed to a modelling opportunity from "out of nowhere" - but a lot of people still don't know about it.

"[The modelling agency] just saw my picture and liked it, so they asked for some more photos," Farquhar said.

"We went and got some photos done for a test shoot for Calvin Klein.

"Boxing is my main thing, so I'll aim for that now. If I want to switch over to modelling or do something else, I'll do that later.

"I'm a bit quiet to be honest, so I don't go around telling everybody that I know. Most people just know me as a boxer and that's it."

Farquhar's switch to the professional ranks comes after he put a line through his dream of winning Australia's first boxing gold medal at the Rio Olympic Games.

A frustrating series of events saw the minimum age for boxing at the Olympics pushed to 19 (raised from 17 in 2013), which would have made Farquhar too young by the time the Rio Games rolled around.

The International Boxing Association backflipped on the move in the lead-up to the Games, but by then it was too late.

So the Olympic dream, modelling, acting, and a media arts and production degree at university have all been put to the side.

Instead Farquhar is training three times a day with an eye on the bright lights of professional boxing.