THE SOLUTION:
vCenter get's messed up if you are tunnelling and trying to use "LOCALHOST" to connect.
Open your hosts file,
change 127.0.0.1 localhost
to:
something like (just for example)
127.0.0.1 localhost2
will make it work.
Something about "localhost" makes ESXI not try to use the tunnel, but rather it literally tries to connect to itself, even with an established tunnel. AND even if https://localhost brings up the vCenter page! So don't be thrown off and say "IT'S WORKING CUZ I CAN HIT THE WEBPAGE" Same problem here, changing from localhost to something else fixed for me.