Hey Mike,
In setting up my lab for vSphere Replication I didn't receive the exact error you are seeing, but something very similiar. My issues was when configuring VRMS on the primary site I used an IP address for the VRM host and on the secondary site I used an FQDN for the VRM host. I reconfigured both to use IP addresses and was able to successfully pair the two.
Hope this helps....
-Jason