Actually, yeah. I did solve it, but it was ugly.
Instead of using an ovftool or "export" from vSphere client, I had to actually ssh in to the ESX server and scp the .vmdk files to a local computer. From that point, I used the ovf conversion tool to convert the images.
Finding the LUN is kind of difficult, and I created a simlink from the root directory instead of having to type out the giant hash for the directory structure. The file structure looks something like this:
/vmfs/volumes/[gigantic hash key associated to simlink]/[server name]/*
I wish I could have gone back in time and told myself this answer way earlier. It would have saved me almost two weeks. I am happy I can help you.