PENSACOLA, Fla. - From the first time he jumped off the roof of his parents' house as a teenager, Mick Foley knew he wanted nothing more than to be a professional wrestler.

He loved the drama. He loved the action. He loved imagining himself as Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, leaping from atop steel cages in Madison Square Garden to the crowd's astonishment.

Despite a 6-foot-4, 300-pound frame, however, Foley was never a particularly gifted athlete, neither handsome enough nor massive enough to fit the typical star wrestler's profile. But Foley - wrestling as Cactus Jack, Mankind and Dude Love during a 16-year career - knew how to take bumps, how to absorb falls and blows and make them look good. Though he has captured the World Wrestling Federation's heavyweight belt three times, his losses - which include some of the bloodiest, most punishing matches in wrestling history - often are more memorable than his victories.

"I think there's a quote from the second Dirty Harry movie (Magnum Force) where Clint Eastwood says, 'A man's got to know his limitations,'" says Foley, 34. "That's pretty much my full-time job."

On Sunday, Foley will take part in what he expects to be his final match as an active wrestler. He'll battle Triple H, The Rock and Big Show in a Fatal Four Way title match at WrestleMania XVI in Anaheim, Calif. It'll be the first time, Foley notes with pride, that he wrestles under his own name.

Wrestling has been kind to Foley - he has a central role in the documentary Beyond the Mat, his wrestling income hit seven figures in 1999, and he expects to match that on royalties from his autobiography, Have a Nice Day - but it has been hell on his body.

In 1994 he tore off most of his right ear during a match in Germany. A 1995 Japanese Death Match with Terry Funk, in a ring rigged with barbed wire and C4 explosives, left him with a huge burn scar on one arm and cuts that required more than 40 stitches. He lost consciousness for about two minutes during his now legendary 1998 Hell in a Cell contest, but was revived and finished the match, despite having lost one tooth and half of another, which somehow wound up lodged in his nose after the 6-foot-10 Undertaker power-bombed him through the roof of a steel cage.

"After the Hell in a Cell match, (WWF chairman) Vince McMahon stood right there when they were stitching me up. Then he brought me into his office and said, 'I cannot tell you how impressed and thankful I am for what you just did; you've got to promise me you'll never do it again.' He then introduced me to the word 'governor,' which I guess is the apparatus on a car or bus that stops it from going too fast. So he placed a governor on me."

That governor was Mr. Socko, a filthy sock puppet Foley's Mankind character used as both a comedy prop and a finishing move.

"I was much more successful and, going over my taxes now, obviously a lot more profitable being more of a comedy character in 1999 than I ever was being the King of Hardcore," Foley says. "If I'd known I could make more money making people laugh than making people wince, I'd have done it a long time ago."

Outside the ring, Foley is a gentle, soft-spoken man who decorates his house with Christmas collectibles, enjoys playing with dolphins and listens to country music. He loves, of course, to wrestle with his two children - Dewey, 8, and Noelle, 6 - though he had to teach them early on not to drop knees on Daddy.

"I stress to my kids that if they're going to wrestle each other, 'There's no throwing each other on the head,'" Foley says. "They've been given many lectures on human anatomy and physiology. They know what not to do to each other, and they know what hurts their dad. They know their dad is a tough S.O.B."

That knowledge isn't always enough. The Hell in a Cell match remains a sore subject with his wife, Colette, two years later, and one of the most disturbing scenes in Beyond the Mat shows her and the kids reacting with terror to another particularly savage match.

"Unfortunately, one of our worst moments has been documented on film," Foley says. After that match, Foley and his wife spent a long time explaining that Daddy didn't get hurt like that every time he went to work. "They've seen a lot of easier matches since then," says Colette, 39.

Foley may have cultivated a reputation as a soft-hearted family man, but his flair for combining hokey humor with unpredictable, apparently hazardous stunts give his in-ring personae a demented edge. He's cleverly played those incongruities off each other to tremendous effect.

"For me, the most endearing quality that Mick has is his intelligence," says Mike Samuda, a staff writer for WrestleLine and Wrestlemaniacs.com. "The great wrestlers use their interviews to get their story line across. Foley is one of the best at that. I think his retirement speech ranks among the best in sports entertainment."

Foley began to mention retirement in his book and discussed it with McMahon last fall. One day later, Stone Cold Steve Austin injured his neck, putting him out of action for several months. Foley agreed to delay his exit to help the WWF compensate for the loss of its biggest draw.

"If it hadn't been for him getting hurt," he reflects, "I wouldn't have had this last run."

Foley announced that he would retire if he lost to Triple H during the WWF's No Way Out pay-per-view event last month. He did lose, and he retreated quietly to his home in the Florida panhandle. After a call from McMahon inviting him to wrestle in Sunday's main event, Foley appeared on the WWF's RAW TV show March 20 to announce what's being billed as a one-night-only return to the ring.

Though that crowd reacted with deafening cheers, his return drew criticism from fans who have long considered Foley one of the most trustworthy personalities in a business that plays fast and loose with the truth. Knowing he'd risk that reputation, Foley says, he spent 20 minutes trying to convince McMahon that he shouldn't headline the WWF's highest-profile event.

"That was his biggest concern, about lying," Colette says.

"It may take some people a while to forgive me, but not as long as it would take me to forgive myself if I didn't do this," Foley says. "Realistically, it's probably going to be more money than I've ever made. So 15 years from now, when everyone has forgiven me, my kids' college will be taken care of."

After the success of his autobiography, which he wrote, longhand, on 760 pages of notebook paper, Foley plans to continue writing. He has begun a children's Christmas book. "The nice thing about writing was that it was the first time in 15 years that I found something professionally that I loved besides wrestling."

He and his wife also own a fitness gym near their house. The scar on his arm, the broken tooth and the missing ear remind Foley daily of his most famous matches. Other injuries make themselves known by general stiffness and soreness, particularly in his knees and lower back. But Foley says he knew the dangers of the job, and says promoters didn't pressure him for more. "I have never been in a position where somebody has asked me to put my body on the line. I have always offered it."

Most observers expect Foley to win the belt at WrestleMania. But few expected him to lose at No Way Out.

"Some people think they need to go out a winner," says Foley, who says he hasn't learned Sunday's intended outcome. "I happen to think it's more romantic to go out the way I did (at No Way Out). And it's better for business. I firmly believe in doing what's best for the guys who have to stay there, whatever that may be."

Foley swears Sunday's match will be his last as an active wrestler, the culmination of a career that began the year of the first WrestleMania. He'll remain under contract to the WWF and has offered his services as an announcer, special referee or "troubleshooting commissioner."

"By leaving now, I'm probably giving up on the most profitable year in my career," Foley says.