Can I force mysql server to resolve the external ip to localhost?
Great, here is the solution I found. I'm chosing to post it here instead of just removing the question since I believe it may be relevant for further reference.

Basically the idea is to leave mysql alone but to tell the server to resolve the ip. In the case of my centos6 configuration it means editing the /etc/hosts file and appending a my.servers.ip.address localhost line into it.

Hope it helped!
S.